His Story (An Undertale Fanfic)
by Greg Jonson
Summary: /POST-PACIFIST, DADSTER\ In the time when monsters, finally free from their imprisonment underneath Mount Ebott, are getting used to living in the human world, Sans is going back to the abandoned underground kingdom looking for someone he misses in his life, even though he never truly knew him. Instead, he finds a human girl and his whole search gets a lot more interesting...
1. Chapter 1 - That's My Job

**Note: As is usual with my fanfictions, I always write intros. In case you don't want to read through them, feel free to scroll past the text in italic.**

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 _Hey everyone! Yay, the time has finally come for my next long story! Gosh, you wouldn't believe how hyped I am for this to start. Last week, I was legit freaking out and almost uploaded it, but I promised to post the first chapter on September. So here you go. :D I'm challenging myself into posting at least one new chapter every 4 weeks, and I swore to myself that should I fail to meet the deadline sometime, I will HAVE TO write a short story about Jerry. And nobody wants that. Screw that guy.  
Just to give you a little context for this fanfic:  
1\. This is Post-pacifist, which means it builds up on the true pacifist ending; monsters live on the surface in peace with humans. On top of that, consider it a veeeery slight sequel to 'First, There Was A Flower', my first fanfic that I finished writing a couple of months ago. In case you haven't read it – I'm not going to spoil much, just know that I let Asriel survive and, after a few years on the surface, fall in love with Frisk. Although 'His Story' isn't going to bother with the two again, it happens in the same universe, so to speak. So don't be confused when I hint towards Asrifrisk and/or Asriel being alive. :D  
2\. I'm proud to introduce my OC, a human girl by the name of Lynx. There really isn't much to her, I just happened to keep calling the fallen human Lynx whenever I played Undertale on my own because I liked the name; and now I've given the name to the main protagonist of this fanfic. Yay. She's actually the girl on the cover image of tnis story - which I did not draw on my own, btw. There's an online app called Mega Anime Avatar Creator (sic) which I ended up fooling around with. And that's how I made the picture of Lynx the way I saw her in my head. :D  
3\. To those who have followed me here since my first fanfic and through my short story series: thank you for putting your time into reading the weird stuff I create. It's the feedback that keeps me motivated to continue writing, knowing that somewhere on another side of the globe, I make someone happy. Please, do not hesitate to write reviews and/or personal messages, either telling me you liked it or yelling where I failed so I can learn from my mistakes. :)_

 _Well, that was a hell of an intro. Let's get to the story already!_

 _Long ago, in a galaxy far far away... (JK)_

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 **CHAPTER I: That's My Job**  
 _(Lynx's perspective)_

It was a beautiful day outside. Birds were singing, flowers were blooming... On days like these, kids like them were often around having a good time.

As ominous as the previous paragraph might have seemed, they were just a simple small group of teenagers who hung out together. New friends came, old friends left, but the core of the group, consisting of three or four people who others considered as leaders, remained the same, kept together by long years of adventures and, honestly, the same class at school.

She wasn't one of them.

She got into the group through her friend who had a crush on Polo, one of the main protagonists of the "gang", and she's hung out with them a couple of times. Usually, they were just chilling, not really doing anything, and honestly, she kept seeing them simply because she had nothing better to do. Plus, her friend sometimes told her she should try and make new friends, so she kept trying for her sake; but after a few weeks she could tell they were all too small minded to be actually interesting in her opinion. She'd have loved to meet the goat monster that, as she'd been told, used to spend time with them, but since he got together with his current girlfriend several months ago, he was barely ever seen with anyone else but her.

It wasn't like she wanted to meet this Asriel guy only because she wished to see a monster. She had seen him in school quite often and she had gotten used to his presence, even though they never talked – he was younger and, therefore, attended a lower class. Monsters, however, interested her because... They were different from humans. They could take many forms, from anthropomorphic animals to straight up nightmares, and yet they all seemed kind hearted, friendly and, well, fascinating. She had difficult time explaining it even to herself, but monsters always looked like they had an interesting story to share, like they understood the world better. Humans, at least those she had met up to this point, were usually speaking a lot but not actually talking about anything, and they were cauciously hiding their true selves from others, as if they were ashamed to admit they're better people than meets the eye. As if they were too lazy to care about big things.

It should be clear now why she was very excited when the "gang" decided to explore the caves of Mount Ebott, the old home of all the monsters which they left more than seven years ago. They had to be careful, though – it was strictly forbidden to enter the caves, the monsters expressed their concern about the matter almost immediately after the underground had gone empty, much to the displeasure of various human tourists and scientists alike. The fact that they were about to do something prohibited made it even more adventurous for them.

That morning, there were five of them who gathered at the hillside: Jon, Carrio, Mace, herself and her friend Sara. Polo didn't come that day; Asriel was his best friend and he didn't want to go behind his back, knowing he shared the monsters' wish to leave the mountain empty. The rest of them were pretty stoked; the difference was that while the rest of them wouldn't shut up about what treasures left behind and miracles of architecture and whatnot they hoped to find in the mountain, she kept her excitement to herself. It wasn't the solid nature of the underground that pulled her in; it was the spirituality of the place, the history it had.

After about an hour of walking upwards, they found themselves on a rocky terrace with an outstanding view of the countryside; they felt the sunrays on their backs. Underneath, they saw an enormous mass of green forests, and the town could be seen to the right of where they stood.

"Imagine this was the first thing the monsters saw when they left the mountain," she spoke up after a long time. "I'd have cried."

"It's hard to imagine what it must have been like," Sara agreed. "Maybe it was like you were blind most of your life and then they cured you."

She almost told them that people tend to take things for granted, unable to understand someone who might not have had what they did, but she rejected that idea because she knew noone would appreciate that thought. The boys have already looked behind them and saw a wide, dark hole carved into the mountain not far from where they were. "That must be it, guys!" Jon shouted. "Let's go!"

"Give me a minute, I'm exhausted," Sara told him and sat down to demonstrate she's not moving until her strength is back. "I'm not used to climbing mountains like this."

"Fine," said Jon and took off his backpack. "The underground isn't going anywhere."

"Has anyone seen my hat?" she asked. No matter how hard she looked, her favourite baseball cap was gone. She definitely had it attached to her pack when she left home, so it had probably fallen off.

"You had it when we met," said Sara. "You must have lost it somewhere in the woods."

"Would you guys wait here for a while? I'm just gonna go back for five minutes, see if it's near by any chance." She was beginning to feel a little anxious; she loved the hat too much. "If not, I'll just look for it on the way back, I don't want to delay you."

"For God's sake, Lynx," Carrio exclaimed, "why didn't you have the hat on your head if you didn't want to lose it?"

"Because, Carr," she replied over her shoulder, "I didn't have time to blow-dry my hair in the morning." With that, she submerged into the bushes.

Lynx was no little girl anymore – she knew losing one thing only meant she'll have to buy another one. But her cap was exceptionally dear to her – it was one of the last things dad had ever given to her before he moved away. Plus, you know, it looked really cool.

Still, even though she was in a hurry, Lynx did take the time to appreciate her surroundings. It all looked even more beautiful now that she was there all by herself. The sun pierced through the treetops above, a gentle breeze played with leaves and grass... It almost made her not want to go into the mountain at all but rather just lay down, stare into the sky and feel the nature's embrace all around.

Sadly, having backtracked for over five minutes, not only she didn't see her hat anywhere, but she also realised she had lost the path they originally took to get up. The latter didn't really bother her that much – she could just walk and she'd find the group eventually. But the loss of her favourite cap made her sad, and she could only hope to retrieve it sooner or later.

While going back to the others the long way round, crossing a narrow but rather hasty stream, moving past a couple of huge boulders and frightening a little rabbit (at least it looked like one from the distance), Lynx had to ask herself why the heck had she not spent more time in here before. Compared to the concrete life she lived below the mountain, this piece of nature seemed truly magical. She promised herself she'll at least take walks through the woods a lot more often. Preferably alone, because the peace, stillness and possibility to stop caring about anyone charmed her.

Finally, she heard distant human voices, turned towards that direction and quickened her pace. She hoped they wouldn't be too upset she had been gone for some time.

Not long after that, she saw the terrace where her friends were, sitting, talking and laughing. Lynx was approaching them from the left of the path they took before. The entrance to the underground was just above her; she couldn't help but peek inside, looking for any sign of what awaits them there.

Much to her surprise, the sign actually came.

For a second, Lynx thought her eyes might have played a trick on her. All she could see was a brief flash of blue colour; not too bright, rather tiny, as if it came from someone's eye. Before she knew it, the light was gone again.

Suddenly, a short figure emerged from the mountain and walked straight towards her friends. Lynx could only see the person from behind; they had their hands in the pockets of a blue hoodie, the hood pulled over their head. Rather strange, considering the warm weather.

She couldn't explain why, but rather than showing herself or warning her friends, she hid behind a bush in the shade of an oak tree and merely watched what was going to happen.

The mysterious figure spoke up, and Lynx heard a laid back man's voice.

"sup, kiddos?"

Everyone winced startlingly; Sara, upon looking at the hooded man, even cried out in shock. That's a little excessive, Lynx thought. He couldn't have scared her that much... Unless there's something terryfying underneath that hood. He came from the mountain – could it be a monster? And what was he even doing there anyway?

Whoever he was, he stopped about twenty feet from the group. He stood on a mild slope that led to the cave, so even though he was a bit shorter, he had the high ground and appeared dominant over the four.

"oh i'm sorry, did i rattle your bones?" he said.

"A little bit, yeah," Jon replied.

"so... whatcha doin' here, kids?" the man who might have been a monster asked. "shouldn't you be at home, doing homework and not trying to sneak into the mountain, like good children?"

"We..." Jon stuttered. "What makes you think we were even going inside? We simply went on a trip-"

"cut it out, buddy," said the person. "really, you should be more careful about the stuff you say out loud when you don't know if someone's close by cocking their ears. figuratively speaking."

"Fine, we were about to go to the mountain," Jon gave up. "But it wouldn't hurt anyone, we-"

"oh, but that's where you're terribly wrong," the man said. "'cause if you do try to go inside... it'll be **you** who's gonna get hurt."

Lynx could only admire the stranger's confidence and self control. Even though he threatened her friends and was apparently ready to guard the underground's secrets with his own body, he still held the same pose – hands in his pockets, a relaxed composture, his voice felt almost bored. Like 'I mean no harm to you – _yet_.' That made him look a lot less threatening than one would expect.

"so, i'm just gonna say this once, so listen carefully," he continued. "grab your things, turn around and run home. i don't want to see your faces on this mountain again."

"But..." Sara gulped.

"now."

"We have a friend somewhere in the woods," she finished the sentence. "We have to wait here for her."

"i'm sure you can just grab her along the way and tell her she's not welcome either." The stranger turned his head briefly towards the pine trees below as to look if anyone else would show up, unwillingly giving Lynx a brief glimpse of the right side of his face. On one hand, he did look like a human; but he looked very pale and skinny, as if he didn't even have any facial muscles. He was grinning, showing a set of teeth that were just as brightly white as the rest of his skull-

Lynx almost facepalmed herself. She was looking at a **skull**. The mysterious man appeared to be a living skeleton. She heard rumors about two skeleton brothers living among monsters, but she never saw either of them. Up until now, it seemed.

She decided to keep hiding. The monster impressed her, and she wanted to see what he does.

"and," the skeleton continued, turning back towards her friends who were reluctantly collecting their backpacks, "if you miss her and she comes right here looking for you, don't worry... i'll see to it with my own eyes that she returns to the town safely. again, figuratively."

The four friends muttered something under their noses and slowly started walking back down. Sara took Lynx's backpack as well, obviously hoping to meet her on the way. Suddenly, the skeleton was alone – except for Lynx who was still crouching in the bush.

The monster walked to the terrace, stopped there and looked into the distance, probably admiring the view just like she did fifteen minutes ago.

"a beautiful day, ain't it?" he suddenly spoke up. Lynx eyeballed her surroundings to see if there was anyone else she didn't notice before, but the skeleton was apparently talking to himself.

"that's right," he continued. "i know it was rude of me to hide in the shadows spying on someone, but, you know... someone has to keep an eye socket on the undergound." A short pause. "still, that makes me a horrible, horrible person... 'cause that's what horrible people do, they just lie down in the bushes, letting weirdos scare away their friends and doing nothing about it."

Lynx, even though she felt confused and guilty, couldn't help but smile – his monologue was just way too ridiculous to listen to. But did he actually know she was in there, or was he, by any chance, saying that just in case?

He turned around. "enough, young lady," he said while looking directly at the bush that protected her. "you must have had a really good reason for staying behind, and before i cast you out, i wanna know."

Lynx waited for a few seconds but then gave up on trying to be sneaky. She stood up and stepped out of the shadows.

As she approached the skeleton who waited patiently for her, she wondered what he thought about her, seeing her for the first time. A skinny girl of an average height, dressed in white shorts and a dark red shirt, with shoulder length blond-ish hair which (to her displeasure) weren't covered by her favourite baseball cap. A girl who chose to let her friends leave without her and watch the mysterious monster do his thing.

"Just so you know," she told him, eager to show him she's not concerned, "I hate it when people call me 'young lady'."

"oops, my bad," he replied. "so what should i call you? traitor? spy? the great betrayer of friendship?"

"First of all, if you must know, my name is Lynx," she shut him up promptly. "Secondly, what would you have me do, jump out only for you to shoo me away with the others?"

"frankly, that would make me happy," the skeleton simply answered. "oh and by the way, since you gave me your name..." He pulled his right hand out of his pocket and reached out to her. "i'm sans. sans the skeleton. very obviously."

Lynx shook her head in disbelief and looked at the bony hand in front of her. She had never shaken a skeleton's hand before. But there's a first time for everything, is it not?

The moment she grabbed his hand with her own, a loud bubbly farting noise spread all over the place. She flinched and wanted to let go, but Sans held her too tight and squeezed her hand in even harder, producing more uncomfortable sounds.

When it was over, the two of them just stared at each other for a while.

Then, Lynx couldn't help it – she burst out in laughter. She didn't know if it was more from amusement or the absurdity of the whole situation, and honestly, she couldn't care less.

"heh..." Sans chuckled as well. "whoopie cushions in the hand. always funny." He took said item off his hand and buried it deep inside his pocket.

"Wow, did you just have that thing on your hand the whole time?" she asked him.

"yup... i always carry it around, in case i met someone new. it really breaks the ice." He ironically bowed a little. " **ice** to meet you, Lynx."

She grinned. "You're a fun guy, aren't you?"

"nah, i don't really like mushrooms."

Sans's expression suddenly turned more serious. "well, as nice as it was to meet you, i can't have you wandering around here on your own. let's go."

With that, he simply turned away and joined the path leading off the mountain casually, like there was no doubt Lynx would follow him. To her own surprise, she did.

"Actually, Sans, can you do me a favor?" she asked him. "I lost my hat somewhere in the woods in the morning, could you please find it for me?"

"huh? how am i supposed to find a tiny hat in a huge forest?"

"I don't know, use your x-ray vision or something."

"hey, i do like to brag, but i really don't have an x-ray vision."

"Then how did you know I was spying on you back there?"

Sans looked at her over his shoulder and winked. "i have a **bet-ray** vision."

Lynx almost stopped where she stood. "That was awful."

"come on, you're smiling."

"Seriously, though," she asked as they continued their descent; she noticed Sans was actually turning his head in all directions, probably looking for her hat. "How **did** you know I was there?"

"you wanna know?"

"Yeah."

"you sure?"

"Come on, say it!"

Sans stopped. "ok, come closer."

Lynx approached him. "So?"

"shh," the skeleton implied he wanted to whisper it into her ear. She bent down a few inches so that he could reach.

Sans drew near and, with his hand mysteriously kept next to his mouth, barely audibly whispered:

"it's a secret."

Then he simply turned around, kept on walking and whistled a strange melody.

Lynx stood there for a good couple of seconds before following him. "You're a moron, you know that?"

"yup," he said. "that's my job."


	2. Chapter 2 - The Only Option

_Hi guys! So, I'm uploading this next chapter only a week after the previous one. Don't take it for granted though, I only do this because I already had it pre-written. I expect the uploads to be less frequent than this in the future. Which I'm sorry about, by the way; but, you know, I have other things to do as well. :D  
Also... What do you think happens to flowers that noone waters for seven years?_

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 **Chapter II: The Only Option**  
 _(Lynx's perspective)_

Lynx woke up to another hot, cloudless day. It was Saturday and summer holidays were just around the corner, which meant she felt no guilt over the fact that she left her bed at about 10:30.

Because she was kind of counting on that in advance, she had agreed to meet with the skeleton guy in the afternoon rather than morning.

Exactly one week ago, Sans shooed her and her friends away from the mountain. During the brief time she spent with him while he "graciously" escorted her to the town's outskirts, Lynx found out he was much nicer than he made himself out to be. Sans made an impression of a weird, grumpy and slightly sadistic man who constantly made bad jokes which only he himself found amusing. She quickly figured out that the first impression was not far from the truth – and that was the reason she wanted to get to know him better. He was so strange and full of puzzles that decrypting the particular traits of his personality felt like unravelling a mystery. And aside from loving mysteries, it was nice to know someone who she didn't learn to read within the first hour.

Perhaps that was the key to liking Sans: one had to live in his universe for a while, a place where nobody knew what will happen next. Not many people would exactly love that idea – at least Lynx thought so. Upon reaching adulthood, nearly everyone entered the world where everything could be planned, known, observed. Friends were reduced to individuals with several qualities which hinted towards what other people could expect from them, whether in terms of work, free time, kind of movies they can watch together, etc. Life sure was easier that way, but for Lynx, it wasn't enough. She liked the element of surprise and (controlled) chaos, and Sans happened to provide both very generously.

Of course she didn't tell him that. The official reason they were about to meet again was that they had absolutely no luck in finding her baseball cap the other day, and Sans proposed to accompany her back into the woods to help her look for it. Lynx appreciated his gesture even though she probably shouldn't have; rather than being a gentleman, the skeleton simply didn't want to let her wander around the mountain on her own, fearing she might try to sneak in again. In all fairness, the desire to see the underground had not left her, but being friends with a monster seemed a satisfying goal for the time being.

The weather wasn't any less sultry when she walked outside of town that afternoon. Lynx felt lucky there were at least trees on the mountain to protect her from the sun.

"hey." she heard a voice somewhere above her.

Speaking of trees... She looked up and saw the skeleton casually sitting on a branch of a pine tree, looking at her and smiling cheekbone to cheekbone.

"I'm afraid to ask, but... why are you sitting on a tree?" Lynx replied to him.

"'cause i'm not a dog," he answered.

"...what?"

"you ever saw a dog on a tree? i'm not one, so i can be on a tree all i want."

Sans knocked on the tree trunk and added: "although, there is a lot of _bark_ up here."

Lynx looked down at the ground and giggled with her hand kept over her mouth. When she turned her head back upwards to say something in response... he was gone.

She stared at the empty pine branch. Was it just her imagination? Was she nuts?

"excuse me, haven't you seen me somewhere around here? i appear to have lost myself," he spoke behind her back.

Of course.

She turned towards the skeleton. "Do you do this often?"

"you'd be surprised. well, actually, perhaps you wouldn't," said Sans.

They began their search, and this time, Lynx carefully tried to follow the exact path that she and the gang took last week. It was much easier to do from down there. Some time had passed without any success.

"say, lynx," Sans asked; "why did you waste your time with your friends the other day?"

"Pardon me?"

"it's probably none of my business, but... judging from what i've seen, you probably don't go very well together." The skeleton gave her a speculative glance. "i know i didn't get to know them that well; they told me about fifty words total, and a fair amount of them were calling me names i wouldn't dare to repeat in front of you. not that they ain't true," he added and cackled; "but still, i can tell you're not like them. in many ways. so i ask you again: why did you waste your time with them?"

Lynx took a while to think about what to tell him and what to keep to herself. On one hand, she did hang out with them mainly because of Sara. The other guys were ok, but she didn't necessarily like them all that much. But on the other hand, it was also true that going with them into mount Ebott, she was following her own reasons – reasons that Sans might not be enthusiastic about. Telling him she only wished to see the place that magically attracted her wouldn't change anything, he was protective of the underground's secrets.

But as she was thinking about it, Lynx realised something odd: she trusted him. They've only talked to each other for less than three hours up to this point, and she somehow knew that if she told him the truth, he wouldn't make a big deal from it. Sans pretended to be strict and threatening, but in reality, he was a laid back guy who didn't really care about that many things. And besides, if she brought up the subject, chances were she might persuade him into telling her more about the world of monsters which she so wanted to understand.

"You see..." she started hesitantly.

"i don't, i have no eyes." Sans snorted. "apologies, please continue."

Lynx quietly called him something awful, but just loud enough to be sure he could hear it. "Well, my friends are... interesting people. They usually just meet up and are lazy together."

"sounds like my kinda friends."

"Yeah, well, sometimes I find it hard to really enjoy their company. Save for my friend Sara, she's amazing." Lynx lifted her gaze up, to the top of the mountain. "It was strange of them to decide to go into the underground, but it was finally something I was really up to. If you don't mind me saying it."

"i see. you love to break the rules." Sans was looking at her mockingly.

"No, it's not that! In principle, I mean." Approaching a two-way split, she paused for a short while, trying to remember which way did she and the group go the other day. Eventually, she took the right path and Sans followed. "But sometimes, breaking the rules is the only option."

"in order to what?"

"To reach something you want."

"well of course, if i wanted a million dollars right now, breaking the bank would be the only option for me." Sans mimicked a gun from his hand and pointed at Lynx. "unless **you** have them, that is."

"Oh no," she played along and put her hands in the air. "Please don't shoot me with your imaginary gun! Just take my million imaginary dollars and go!" And the two of them laughed.

"Seriously though," Lynx spoke as they continued to walk forward, "I didn't mean it's something just to satisfy your greedy soul. Like..." She tried to think about a good explanation. "What makes you happy in life?"

"let's see... ketchup, naps, my bro... i dunno, why?"

"You and your brother are pretty close?"

"oh yeah, me and papyrus are _bon-e-ded_. except he pretends he doesn't like my puns."

"I'm not surprised. So, imagine he ends up locking himself inside a vault in a bank. I believe you'd do anything to break him out, right?"

"naturally."

"Well," Lynx concluded, "I don't know if it's that good of an example, but... You break the rules all the same in this case, but you do it for something you really value."

"and i can still take the money, right? since i'm already there..."

She sighed. "What I'm trying to say is, even though I did try to get into the mountain, I wasn't going to cause any trouble or profit from it or brag about it. It's just... I felt seeing the underground would, in a way, make me happy."

"huh." Sans only seemed a little surprised. "and why is that?"

Lynx was looking at the ground. "I don't know... I guess I like exploring interesting new places." She recoiled. "No, that's not it. I wanted to explore the underground in particular, simply because I was curious about your world. The monsters', I mean. And I still am. You'd be surprised how many people don't care about your kind, but I do."

"yup, most people don't care about our history, and that's just the way we wanted it," Sans assured her. "why do you think we didn't want anyone to sniff around our old home? which, ironically, we used to call 'new home'... but the point is we don't want anyone to dig in the past, humans or monsters. everyone was happy to leave that place for good."

The way he said it sounded like he didn't fully agree with that policy. Lynx remembered something. "Why were you out there, then? Last week?"

The skeleton's composture tensed a little bit; he looked like a boy caught stealing candy. "you know, i was looking if anyone tries to break the rules. lucky i was there, don'tcha think?" he said. It wasn't very convincing.

"Sans, come on. I told you the truth, so you might as well be honest with me too."

"fiiiine, but don't tell anyone i said this," he gave up. "i sometimes miss that old place, you get it? i miss the memories. 'cause you see, life wasn't all that bad. sometimes, it was even great. i like to walk through the old city and remind myself of it."

"Because your life now doesn't seem all that great?" she guessed.

"careful now, young lady," Sans stopped and for the first time she heard him talk, he actually seemed to be getting a little upset. "you don't know anything about my life."

Lynx knew she went too far. "I'm sorry, Sans."

"nah, it's okay," he calmed down and returned to his joking mood. "just next time, think before you say things to someone who has something of yours."

"What? What do you have of mine?" she asked, genuinely confused.

"gosh, what do you think this whole expedition was about?" said Sans and suddenly put his left hand up. In it, he held-

"My hat!" Lynx screamed in a brief moment of extasy. "Where did you find it? And when, that's probably more appropriate question."

"just over there... and, well, a moment ago." The skeleton was smiling, proud of himself. She approached him and took the baseball cap. It was the one she had lost, no doubts about it: a black one, with a white winged skull on the front. Lynx put it on her head. "Seriously, thank you!"

"you're welcome. although, that picture kinda creeps me out... but i'll just pretend it's supposed to be me."

"Oh yeah, the skull... But, you know, you don't have wings."

"hey, you don't know that."

" **Do** you have wings?"

"well, no, but in principle, you couldn't have known."

Lynx giggled. Sans looked behind her.

"oh, looks like we found it just in time. perhaps it will keep your head dry for... about sixty seconds."

"What?" she said and followed his gaze. Right behind her back, on the sky, an evil-looking blanket of dark grey clouds was being spread all across the sky. Lynx realised the sun is gone; it probably had been for a while now. Wind was beginning to play with the trees which replied with a disapproving rustle.

"Oh crap." Lynx turned around and looked in the direction of the town. It was way too far to get there in time. She was slowly starting to feel anxious.

"what's the matter? fear you might _drop_ down from a little rain?" Sans asked, smiling as always.

"Sans, I..." She looked at him. A distant sound of thunder roared above them. Lynx shook.

The skeleton's look changed into a more concerned one. "not a fan of storms, huh?"

"I'm afraid of storms, ok? And on top of that, we're in the woods on the highest freaking mountain around!" She rapidly took off, walking down the path back to the town. "Let's at least get as low as we can before it hits us."

"hey, wait a second."

Lynx didn't turn around.

"lynx!"

She blinked. Sans was suddenly standing right in front of her, causing her to stop.

"What?!"

They stared at each other for a couple of seconds; Lynx curled up in her own arms, stressed out and scared; Sans casually standing there like he used to do, with his hands in his pockets, his expression seemed kind of wise, like he always knew better. Wind was pulling on her hair and his cape alike.

"do you trust me?" the skeleton asked.

"Yes, but why do you ask that now?"

"then if i told you i knew a shortcut... would you believe me?"

"Do you really? Is there a hideout around here somewhere?" Lynx immediately looked around like she expected to see a bunker. Even a cottage made of gingerbread would do.

"something like that." Sans stepped forward and reached out to her. "come."

Lynx looked at him and despite the situation couldn't help but smile. "I swear to God, if this is another whoopie cushion trick..."

"what kind of moron would trick people like that?" he asked and grinned. "come on!"

She reached out as well and took his hand into her own.

Suddenly, the world around her disappeared in a blinding flash. Lynx reflexively closed her eyes and screamed; at first, she thought a lightning struck really close, if not them directly. But she soon realised she heard no thunder. She dared to carefully open her eyes again.

"fast shortcut, huh?" Sans let go of her hand.

"What... where..." Lynx could only see an inside of what was probably a cave. Some light was shining in through the entrance to the left of her, a good distance from where they stood; the sky was just as dark as before, and rain started to fall. Soon, there will probably be an impassable thick wall of water everywhere. "How did we get here?"

"let's just say i know ways to get around," was all that the skeleton said about it. "welp, since we're already stuck here... it shouldn't hurt to show you."

"Show me what?" Lynx asked and looked at Sans. He was already on his way deeper into the cave. "Hey, wait up!"

She caught up to him just as they arrived into a room with nothing but a big chair - or perhaps a throne - in the middle; the floor was covered in dead flowers.

"sorry about this," said the skeleton in regards of them; "looks like noone has any _plants_ with them anymore."

"Um... Where are we?"

Sans approached a window and beckoned her to come closer. "see for yourself."

Behind the window laid a huge cavern. There were a couple of small holes and cracks in the ceiling, apparently letting in some mild amounts of light from the surface. Apart from that, hundreds and hundreds of strange blue crystals grew out of the rock, giving a light of their own. Thanks to that, Lynx and Sans were able to see the whole city below them. There probably weren't more than a few hundred houses, but the fact that they filled the entire cavern made the city seem enormous. The blue crystals on the ceiling made all buildings look like they were shining slightly.

"Wow..." Lynx only stared at the unexpected beauty, slowly processing what she was seeing. "This is the underground? Why did you take me **here**?"

"because," said Sans and winked at her; "sometimes breaking the rules is the only option."


	3. Chapter 3 - Light

_So, I'll admit that this chapter is probably a tiny bit questionable. I used it to explain my thoughts about some very basic Undertale things. I hope you'll like (or rather you won't dislike) my theory. :D  
Also, I bet you'll use Google or Wiki at least once while reading this. You know **I** had to. :D  
Also, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO UNDERTALE! I'm kinda late on this, but still, one year after the game was released, I'm still a total trash. So my serious thanks goes to all the people behind it. :)_

* * *

 **Chapter III: Light**  
 _(Sans's perspective)_

Eight humans have fallen into the underground before, but Lynx, at least that he knew of, was the first one to walk right in through the "main" entrance. And it was because of him.

For the most part, Sans felt rather indifferent to this fact. He was neither proud of himself nor terrified of the consequences, he was just... being Sans.

The most he felt was a bit of surprise. He would have never expected himself to bring a human into their old world. Not because of the rules – he was one to believe rules were only made for those who can't handle themselves without restrictions. That being said, he fully agreed with the underground's definite closure. Partially because, since he kept returning to that place, he absolutely didn't need anyone else around.

That's why it felt a little strange to bring the girl inside, furthermore when he only knew her for so short. But he didn't need to justify his volitions to himself. He simply trusted Lynx with her honest intentions. She didn't seem like the kind of person who would feel the urge to take hundreds of pictures to brag about or turn the underground into an adventure park or dishonest the old place in any other way. As he saw her standing by his side, looking through the window in awe and pure hearted fascination, Sans knew he did the right thing. Even though the primary objective was to get her out of the storm.

Lynx peeked at him enthusiastically. "Can you take me down there? Pleeease?"

"i can," he said in response, but didn't move an inch.

"So?" she asked after a few moments.

"i said i can, not that i'm going to."

"Oh come one, Sans! **Will** you, please, show me the city?"

"a'right, if you insist..." He took a step forward and looked into her eyes. "but let's make a few things straight: we'll only go where i say we'll go, and you won't leave my sight. capiche?"

Lynx nodded. "Are you afraid I might get lost, or you just don't trust me?"

"oh, you're a lost cause already." Wink. "nah, it can be pretty dangerous around here. Neither of us would be happy if you fell down a hole five minutes after i've shown you this place."

"Fair point," she replied, and they left the room together.

"Wait, what do you mean, I'm a lost cause?"

"eh, i was just wondering how can you be afraid of storms," said Sans. "i think storms are cool. we didn't have any down here."

"Well..." Lynx sighed, "I lost my uncle to a lightning strike when I was a kid. I mean, I wasn't there to see it, but... the aftermath was pretty rough. And I don't know if it's the reason behind my astraphobia, but it sure as hell didn't help."

"oh." Sans immediately thought of a dozen terrible puns about lightning, but he knew when to keep his teeth shut. "that sucks."

They walked into the Judgement Hall in silence; he was unsure of what to say. Being serious was hard.

"were you close?" he eventually asked.

"No, not that much. But my dad – his brother – was devastated. It took him a full year to deal with it."

"i know how that must've been like. hypothetically, i mean. had i lost papyrus so suddenly..."

Dark thoughts became clouding his mind. Sans shook his head rapidly and figured it was about time to change the subject.

"hey, let's talk about something positive, shall we? like, man, when the storm approached... you could say you were lucky i was _thun-there._ "

Lynx chuckled. "That reminds me, you still haven't told me how you carried us here."

"oh, it was just, you know, magic," he said, intentionally talking like it wasn't a big deal.

"Really? I've heard monsters could use magic, but I've never seen it! How does it work?"

Aaand there it was. Sans was expecting the topic to come around sooner or later. He thought about it before: he really didn't feel like the one who should be expaining this to a human. He wasn't an expert on the matter, nor a lecturer.

But given the circumstances, he might have been the only source of knowledge Lynx could find, at least for the time being.

"alright," Sans told her; "i'm not the best person to talk about this, but i guess i can _spell_ it out for you if you want."

They arrived at the terrace above the city and sat at the edge, looking down at the houses.

"first thing you must understand, lynx," he said, "is that us 'using' magic isn't the right way to describe it. we **are** magic. i mean, we're made of it, at least."

"I don't get it." Lynx looked at Sans and carefuly squeezed his arm. "You don't have any... you know... you're not... physical? "

"i believe you wanna ask if i'm not made of 'cells', like you humans are."

"Yes, thank you." She kept poking on him. He chose to ignore it. "Well, if you don't have a living body, I'd expect to just phase through you."

"see, you're making a mistake already. you assume that magic is just an energy." Sans softly slapped her hand that was still attacking his forearm. "you get an F, see ya next year."

"Don't _test_ my patience, Sans!"

They both laughed. "wow. ok, you're becoming _punny_ , i forgive ya."

"So? What is magic if not an energy?" Lynx asked.

He thought about it. "you ever built a snowman?"

"Yes?"

"and what'd you build it from?"

"...Snow?"

"yup. and what is snow?"

Lynx hesitated. "It's, uh... small particles of ice."

"and what is ice? _water_ you waitin' for, i want you to say the word," Sans pretended he was becoming impatient.

"And if I don't?" she asked playfully.

"i'm not telling the rest."

"Fine, ice is frozen water. It's _of-fish-ial_." Lynx blinked rapidly.

"really? **fish**?" He looked at her with feigned disappointment. "it's too long a way from ice to fish. you can't make connections that wide, the audience won't get it." Sans winked and added: "but it's a great word, remember it."

"What would you have said, then?"

"let's see... i'd say something like: ice is frozen water, it's a pretty _solid_ information."

She chuckled. "Maybe after you're done explaining magic to me, you can teach me jokes."

"it's not so hard, you just gotta know a lot of words. oh, and be a moron, on top of that." Sans looked at her. "i see no problem there, at least..."

Lynx didn't say anything to that, just punched his shoulder.

"anyways," he continued as he rubbed the aching spot, "what i meant by the water analogy was: try making a sculpture out of liquid water and you'll fail, but if the conditions are suitable, it gains such form that you could build snowmen from it. that's how it works with monsters, too. i'm no scientist to tell you exactly how, but imagine it like we're made of frozen water that sustains a friendly environment to keep us from melting. and when we are wounded or too old to produce enough energy to control the temperature, so to speak... then the snow melts."

"So monsters are made of magic in a state that keeps them from falling apart?"

"yes. _magical_ , don't you think?" Sans was looking at the cavern ceiling. Some of the rain that was falling on the surface found its way to the holes, creating tiny waterfalls.

"But how are monsters made? By the way you described it, I'd have imagined there's always some dude building you like snowmen and letting you into the world." Lynx giggled at this thought.

"actually, this might not be far from home," he replied. "you could find dozens of theories about our origin, and one of them states there might have been human magicians that created the first of us with their own hands. i don't really believe it, but it's a possibility. and since human magicians, from what i've heard, have been extinct for centuries, there's noone who could confirm this."

Sans stood up. "hey, let's take a walk through the city. we've been sitting here long enough, and i don't think the storm's gonna pass any time soon anyway." He offered Lynx his hand to help her stand up.

Of course, when she took hold of it, the whoopie cushion proved useful once more.

"Dammit, I don't know how you always catch me off guard," she snorted. "It makes no _Sans_."

"heh, good one." He put the item back in his pocket, and they took off.

"What do **you** believe, Sans?" Lynx asked. "About where monsters came from."

"i'm not sure if i believe anything," he said. "i just accept that we're here, and that's all that matters to me."

"Sounds fair enough."

Soon, they walked past Asgore's old house, and the first buildings of New Home emerged in front of them. Sans' mind went a few years back, to the time when he and Papyrus lived in the city, before they moved to Snowdin. He saw familiar faces, heard noises as hundreds of monsters lived their lives... He could have sworn he even smelled the questionablle odors crawling out of his favourite bistro.

"heh," he said, half to himself; "i guess me and paps were never into crowds."

"What are you saying?" said Lynx, reminding him she was still there.

"oh, sorry. i was just remembering this place when it was full. me and my bro eventually decided to move somewhere smaller, and we ended up in snowdin."

"Hang on, there's **more** than one city down here?"

"a couple of those. new home was the largest by far. then there were a few settlements here and there throughout hotlands and waterfall, and once you came to the snowy forests, there was a small town of snowdin. past that was the old capital, but that had been abandoned long before i was born. nothing but ruins. oh, and i should also mention temmie village, but i don't want to." Sans shivered.

"So many places... How big is the underground anyway?"

Lynx was looking at him with eyes wide open. He thought she was almost adorable when she was astonished like that.

"it took 'bout a two day journey to reach snowdin from here, but that was when the elevators worked. now you'd have to walk through hotlands on foot which would take at least an extra half a day."

"What's with the elevators?"

"oh, nothing, just outta power. dr alphys turned the core off before we left. otherwise, it would explode within days." Lucky for me, Sans added in his head.

"So 'The Core' was like a power plant to you guys?" Lynx asked. "I'd love to see it!"

"nah, that's really not a good idea," the skeleton replied and quickly pointed at the first thing that caught his eye. "hey, look, this was where the madjicks lived. funny guys. we used to hang out a lot when i was a _baby-bone_."

"That's cool, but I'd like to see The Core!" she pulled on his sleeve. "Can you take me there, please?"

"well..." Sans' discomfort levels were rising rapidly; "you wouldn't like it there, it's a pretty boring place. just a lot of cables and tech stuff."

"Au contraire, that's exactly what I'm into! Have I told you I'm starting at MIT this fall?" Lynx informed him proudly. "I'd love to-"

"i'm not going down there with you, end of story!" Sans was close to snapping again; he stopped and rubbed his forehead to calm himself. "sorry, i don't wanna talk about it anymore."

He thought Lynx was about to ask more questions, but apparently she understood. "Ok, then," she said; "So, what were you saying about... Madjicks, was it?"

"yeah," Sans followed up with relief, and began explaining the relationship he and the family had before he and Papyrus left the capital.

He appreciated that Lynx, as confused and curious as she seemed to be, was able to forget about the subject for the time being. And he was truly sorry to let her down like that. Showing her the underground was one thing – he believed no real harm would come from that. However, his **own** secret was something completely different. The Core was solely his to explore, and he didn't want anyone else to find their way down there by accident.

Not until his search was finished, either way.

As Sans and his companion travelled through New Home, talking about wherever the conversation led them, the unpleasant topic slowly but surely left his mind, and the skeleton was just as silly and laughy as usual. Eventually, however, he was slowly starting to feel a little numb and not long after that, he started yawning.

"Stop it, you're infecting me as well!" said Lynx after an exceptionally long and loud yawn, and did it right after him.

"whoops, i guess we've been here a while. you have a watch?"

"I got my phone, hold on... Oh, yeah, it's past eight! I should get home before mum starts to worry." She looked around. By the time they were here, they managed to walk to the Royal Square; houses were standing all around them. "How long does it take to get to town from here?"

"just how long you wish," said Sans.

"Oh, yeah, I forgot," Lynx smiled.

Not ten seconds later, the two of them appeared somewhere in the woods near the bottom of the mountain in a blue flash. The air smelled rainy and fresh, but the storm was over. It was that time of the evening when the sun was gone already but the night was a little bit late to the party.

"Man, I wish I could do that," she sighed as the two of them walked towards the distant lights of the street lamps.

"you should have came to the underground a few years ago," he said in response. "the centuries that all monsters spent down there caused the magic to concentrate in such amounts that it multiplied everyone's abilities, even the humans' that fell down and had nothing to do with magic in the first place. for example, someone who was naturally decently brave would lose every hint of fear they'd have normally. or if someone was stubborn and determined to always do the right thing... well, you get the idea."

"And now?"

"well, since the place had gone empty, the levels of magic are returning to normal. i'm not able to do half as much as i could in the old days. and you..." Sans nudged her with his shoulder. "...you're just as dorky as usual down there."

"Hey, do you think that's my biggest personal trait?"

"i can't see anything bigger in you."

While that argument went on for a short while, they reached the first houses at the town's outskirt.

"'kay, girl, this is as far as i'll go with you. considering what we just did, i think it should be better if people don't see us together this evening."

"And what we'll continue doing in the future, right?" Lynx was giving him a passionate gaze; light was reflecting off of her eyes, making her look even more thrilled. Suddenly, she realised this and tilted her head to the ground. "I mean, if it wouldn't bother you. There's so much you haven't shown me yet, but... I understand it's not that simple."

Sans thought about this for a second. Had someone caught them in the underground today, he could have always said he was just hiding the human from the storm which she feared. But were they to continue going to the underground more often, they could both be in serious trouble. It wasn't like they'd throw them in the jail, but upsetting Asgore was something that he wanted to avoid at all costs. He wasn't afraid of this when he went there on his own – he was careful and, as he told Lynx before, knew ways to go around unnoticed. Plus, his goal was worth any kind of trouble to go through.

On the other hand, he really enjoyed her company. It was a really long time since he allowed anyone new to be his friend, but there was something special about Lynx. He knew he could trust her with any secrets he could tell her about the underground, and it felt good to know someone who's mind was just as twisted as his own, as far as the taste for jokes went. At the end of the day, all they had to do was lie constantly and not get seen by anyone. Sans didn't know about Lynx, but he was really good at both.

"hey," he said eventually; "i hope i'm not making a mistake but... i guess we could continue doing this."

It was worth promising just for the wide smile she immediately put on. "Really?" she almost squeaked.

"yep, but! promise me you'll never go to the mountain without my guidance, okay?" He looked her in the eye. "seriously, **never**."

"Geez, you don't have to be so _Sans-itive_ about that."

"heh, i'm looking forward to next time," he laughed. "okay, same time next week?"

"Sure, call me if anything changes."

Sans winked at her one last time and disappeared.

What Lynx didn't know was just how much he was grateful for this opportunity. In these rather dark days, he could always use some more light.


	4. Chapter 4 - A Lot To Explain

_Hello, readers and gentlereaders! I'm sorry for the long delay; I'm attending two schools right now so free time isn't exactly what I have a lot of. But hey, I'm glad I managed to finish this chapter before the 28 days mark! Still, by the looks of it, I don't think this story will be finished this year.  
Also, who in here is a fan of Slenderman? MWHAHAHAHA._

* * *

 **Chapter IV: A Lot To Explain**  
 _(Lynx's perspective)_

With the end of school, Lynx quickly found herself in a state of constant boredom. Sure, she was looking forward to starting her undergrad studies, but that was too far ahead. For the time being, she was stuck in the town, with most of her friends gone on vacation, mum always at work and dad too busy and far away to visit or at least let his daughter come over to his place.

The secret trips she was taking with Sans were one of the very few things that kept her above water those days.

The skeleton was kind enough to keep showing her every tiny inch of the underground, and every area was special and fascinating in its own way. Lynx had seen the entire city of New Home by that point, and the two of them also visited a few interesting places in the Hotlands as well as the Waterfall. They weren't even going to the mountain for that long, but with Sans's powers, they could cover an half-hour trip within a blink of an eye.

But Lynx's new friend had also shown her things that few or no monsters at all have seen before them. For example, they visited a museum which was completely free of any visitors and exhibitions alike which gave the huge building a strange, surreal feeling of emptiness. The duo ended up playing a game where they approached blank spots on the walls and took turns in describing made up paintings, each crazier than the previous one.

Another time, Sans took her to smaller caverns which were hidden within the mountain, inaccessible from the main cave. The skeleton told her that he discovered these by accident: one day, he saw a mouse snooping around and running in and out of a tiny hole in the wall. He soon learnt that there might have been an entire new tunnel complex that the mice used to move all around the underground. Sans found several rooms that were big enough for him to be in, but that was pretty much it – there was nothing but stone walls and a few tunnels that were too small for anything and anyone but the rodents. Still, the possibility of having perhaps a whole new world somewhere inside the mountain was really exciting, for both of them.

Unfortunately, Sans didn't have enough free time to take her to the underground every single day. And Lynx wasn't going to betray his trust by taking the trip on her own.

Emphasis on _wasn't_.

The past few days weren't exactly easy for her. Sans told her before he had some business outside of town and therefore won't be able to acompany her to the mountain until next Tuesday – which was still 4 torturing days in the future. It wouldn't have been such a big deal on its own, but for the last week or so, life was showing a certain hostility towards her. All sorts of broken furniture, plates and glasses, friends being depressed or arguing with her over small things, mum leaving her home alone all the time... Eventually, Lynx realised she was going nuts and decided she needed to escape.

To be fair, she only wanted to spend some time alone in the woods at first. At least the weather is nice, she thought while walking forward, not even looking where she went. The day was sunny and hot, but at least there was some gentle wind to cool everything down a little bit. And no storms were supposed to happen anytime soon, which was always good news.

With her mind overwhelmed with the depressing memories from the last couple of days, she realised her feet were taking her to the top of the mountain. And why the heck not, she said to herself. It's a beautiful view from the terrace. Now that Sans is always taking me through a shortcut, I never get to go up there anyway.

Not too long after that, she sat in the shadow of a pine tree, her back leaning on the trunk, and looked into the distance. Green forests all around, some large bird circling the terrain looking for prey, and the town wasn't bigger than her hand. All of Lynx's troubles felt just as small, and she felt as if she could just grab them and throw them over the cliff. Sadly, that would have been irresponsible – she knew she would have to come back to them once she's back.

A strange feeling irritated her. She looked over her shoulder. The cave entrance was right there. Lynx almost felt like it talk to her.

'What?'

 _What?_

'What are you doing?'

 _I'm not doing anything, I'm just being here._

'Well, whatever you're doing, stop it. I'm not going to go inside.'

 _Good, 'cause I don't want you to come inside either._

Then, a few moments of awkward silence.

"Oh screw it," she said eventually, got up on her feet and walked right through the entrance.

 _I knew you'd come around,_ a voice in her head told her.

'Shut up.'

Lynx walked through the first corridor to the throne room and beyond while trying to stop feeling guilty and anxious. Soon enough, these feelings were silenced by the pure joy of seeing the place she learned to love during the past few weeks. It became clear to her that she needed this.

Over time, the underground became a second home to her, a safe place which she kind of selfishly considered her own. In here, everything was suddenly fine. There were no people to let her down, noone to tell her who she had to be or how to have fun. Lynx could dare to just be herself.

Or was it Sans's presence that gave her that feeling? It was hard to tell. Now that she thought about it, she realised she sort of missed the skeleton here. He was an indespensable part of this world, at least she felt that way. Walking through the caves on her own was like she was missing a vital part of her. Incomplete.

Nevertheless, the stillness and kindness of New Home filled her with peace which she wasn't able to regain since last time she'd been here. Lynx caught herself wishing she had brought her sketch book and drawn everything she could; she rebuked herself, for it was the exact thing she was forbidden to do. It was bad enough that she was even coming to the underground, but had she brought out drawings for anyone to see, that would be inexcusable.

It was sad that noone was able to see this all again. But aside from that restriction being more or less reasonable, Lynx also felt a little relieved that nobody was going to invade _her_ safe place.

She looked up to see she was standing in front of a street she didn't see before. She chose to walk down there out of curiosity. Soon enough she found out the street was rather short, ending just after the first left turn with a cool looking building...

...which had the word CORE written just above the front door.

Lynx hadn't tried to ask Sans about The Core again since the first time he accidentally mentioned it. She figured he had some issues with that place and didn't want to return for his own sake. However, she was still curious to see how the monsters built it. And since the skeleton wasn't here, and since she was already in the undeground anyway...

She opened the door and entered a lobby. A quick look at the writings on the wall next to a staircase told her that this was probably something like an administration building or operating centre. There was, however, an arrow with the word CORE above it that led downstairs. That must have had been the passage to the complex itself.

Lynx felt her heartbeat all over her body as she walked down the stairs. It was a rather long set of stairs; she thought she had been descending for at least five minutes by the time she reached the bottom. Only two sets of doors were at the bottom floor, and one of them (as she found out herself upon opening it) was merely a broom closet. She took a deep breath and pulled the handle of the second door.

In front of her laid a black corridor. Since the complex was apparently carved into the mountain itself, there were no light crystals anywhere; only the emergency lights designed to shine without electricity gave out a dark red shadow which made everything barely visible. She heard a distant sound of air roaming through the empty corridors.

Overall, the scenery was considerably spooky. Lynx remembered all the horror games she knew, and shivered at the thought of a tall faceless man creeping behind her back. Before her brain could tell her this was a bad idea, she convinced herself that none of it was real and there was nothing awaiting her there. She closed the door behind her and took the first few steps forward.

After a few minutes of walking, she became somewhat comfortable with the place, and her steps gained more speed and confidence. Lynx opened up some of the doors she met along the way and saw some strange looking pieces of technology, but since all power was hopelessly off, she couldn't have known what the devices were supposed to do.

Reaching the first split, she decided to take the left path. The key to finding a way out of a labyrinth was to always follow the same pattern; if she always went left on every split, she will know to always go right when she'll want to return.

Eventually, she saw a warm light somewhere ahead of her. Reaching that point, Lynx found herself on a bridge built at the top of a tall cave. There were a few other bridges underneath, and all the way at the bottom laid a pool of lava which provided enough light to make the entire cave visible clearly.

It was worth going down here just for this view.

She decided she wanted to find her way onto one of the bottom bridges. She remembered she saw a staircase just before she walked to where she was, and turned back to walk there. Suddenly, she saw a white paper note on the wall; she hadn't noticed it before.

Lynx went to read it. She considered a lot of possibilities for what would be written there; but she did not expect to see what she saw. Her heart almost skipped a beat, she backed away from the paper and frantically looked around to see nobody. But the note still indisputably said:

I KNOW YOU'RE HERE.

Ok, don't be paranoid, she told herself. For all you know, this could be an inside joke that someone left behind. Buuuut, you know, maybe it would be a good time to leave...

Lynx, clinging on to her bravery and sense of realism, calmed down and chose to walk downstairs nevertheless. She was about to leave this place right after that, but since she was already on her way to the bottom of that cave before, she wanted to at least finish what she started.

She didn't come far before she found yet another note with the same message. That was weird, but she was glad the papers at least weren't threatening her. Descending further, she realised the same messages are being placed on the walls on every floor. Whoever left them there probably wanted to make sure the recipient would get to them wherever they went.

However, the notes weren't making much sense on their own. Were they meant just to make fun of someone? Was the person behind them actually looking for someone? If so, why didn't they ask the other monster to react to the messages? Lynx was annoyed that she had no way of finding out. She considered writing a response on one of the papers but quickly remembered she wasn't supposed to be there on the first place and therefore shouldn't leave anything behind that might lead to her.

All of a sudden, she heard a spontaneous silence. Only now it occurred to her that she'd been hearing deep mechanical sounds for the last couple of minutes, and now it was gone. She stopped walking and breathing at the same time and listened carefully. Nothing. She let out a deep breath.

In the distance, a single cough echoed through the corridors.

She almost screamed. She wanted to turn around and get the hell out of this place, but her feet weren't listening to her just yet. She listened again and prayed that the noise was just her imagination.

Nothing else could be heard in the next few moments, so Lynx began to walk back upstairs, making as little noise as she could. The last thing she wanted was to alert whoever could be wandering through The Core.

She finally made it back to the top level where she found the first note. Soon, she'll be out and pretend this all never happened.

Footsteps right around the corner.

Lynx never ran faster in her life.

She didn't care about making noise anymore, she just wanted to get as far as she could.

Before she even realised how she got there, she was crouching behind a rather big machine in one of the rooms. The Core was huge, so even though she was basically cornered, she was hoping she would be lucky and the mysterious person would just walk around.

She wasn't lucky.

The slow footsteps stopped right at the door. She tried not to breathe, even though she was shivering all over her body.

The person spoke up.

"i know you're here."

That voice...

"come on, get out. i don't have all day."

Lynx peeked out. Of course it was him, standing there with his arms crossed and looking anything but happy.

"oh, it's you," Sans said and took a few steps forward.

Just like that, she felt she won't be able to hold it any longer. All the fear, guilt and overall chaos were looking for a way out. Her throat clutched and first tears found their way into her eyes. She wasn't able to think straight right now.

"why the hell," he continued in a semi-dangerous voice, "are you here, of all places? not only you went to the underground on your own, but you stick your nose into the one place i told you not to go."

Lynx sobbed. Salty waterfalls began to slide across her face.

"oh, grow up. don't try this on me."

She kneeled, buried her face in her hands and cried incontrollably.

As softly as he could, Sans placed his hand on her shoulder.

"hey, it's okay. i'm not gonna hurt you."

Lynx could only hiccup in response. The skeleton softly caressed her arm; with a sense of empathy she wouldn't have expected from him, he postponed his upcoming anger.

"don't think i'm forgiving you just because of this," he said. "after you're done, you still have a lot to explain."


	5. Chapter 5 - Probably

_If you write stories yourself, do you know those nights when you suddenly go and finish a chapter within a few hours, even though you knew you should REALLY GO TO BED? Yup. :D But it's here that the story finally starts making some actual sense. Aw, you thought it was going to be a harmless story about two friends talking and walking through the underground? TOO BAD. But knowing Sans, you might have already guessed who else could be making an appearance sooner or later.  
Also, I don't know what the intro is supposed to mean. But I liked the idea behind it. :D  
_

* * *

 **Chapter V: Probably**  
 _(Sans's perspective)_

A lonely mouse came out of the hole. It felt the cold snow crunching under its feet.

It was strange. Any time it came here, no matter what season it was on the surface, it was always winter at this place.

And this particular mouse was lucky to even had been born **at** the surface. As the elders explained, there was a time not that long ago when their families were trapped inside the mountain, held by a magic barrier. Occasionally, some other mice (which they greeted) or other small animals (which they ate most of the time) would enter the halls, but once the mountain let them in, there was no coming back.

There were even legends related to the barrier's pesence. They said that the first mouse, Snoutilus, discovered it by unknowingly entering the caves. Seeing he can't get back, his love Whiskerina chose to abandon all the other mice and went through the barrier herself so that they could be together. From the two of them came the entire underground mice kin.

The young mouse didn't think that was entirely true. But it still shared the belief in the Cheese Gods.

The old generations used to pray to the Cheese Gods who supposedly walked among them in forms of giants, leaving all sorts of food laying all around so that the mice wouldn't starve. The Gods had disappeared along with the barrier, apparently ultimately sacrificing themselves to set their loyal worshippers free. All that they left behind were the four cheese shrines which the mice still visited and prayed to so that the Gods, wherever they dwelled, wouldn't forget about them. They were the Melted Cheese, the Crystal Cheese, the Hidden Cheese (now defiled) and, of course, the Frozen Cheese, the last and newest of the shrines.

There used to be a plate of something disturbing in the old days, but just before the Gods left, two of them, the Twin Bone Gods, came around one last time, apparently arguing. It seemed like one of them intended to keep the disgusting food where it was but was eventually convinced to just leave a block of cheese behind. The mice saw it as an analogy: now that the barrier was gone, their challenging lives, almost as bad as the mysterious food that the Bone Gods took away, would turn that much better – like a delicious block of cheese.

The young mouse climbed to the top of the four legged wooden plateau on which the cheese stood, proudly overseeing the world around. The everlasting cold of this region kept it from spoiling.

The mouse placed the sacrifices it brought – some seeds and small pebbles – among the others that gathered there along the previous months. The mice priests had decided to organise a pilgrimage to each shrine once per year, one trip every three months. If the sacrifices assembled throughout the year were still there, they took it as a sign from Gods that they were letting their servants have a feast. The pilgrimage to the Frozen Cheese wasn't happening until five or six months later, so there was a mentionable pile of offerings next to the cheese.

The young mouse squeaked out a few prayers to the Cheese Gods and turned back to the path it came from. Soon, it arrived back into the tunnels and the halls of the old mouse kingdom.

There, however, it stood in awe as it saw a giant right in front. The mouse, having been born on the surface, has never seen a giant before. He was enormous; his head was almoust touching the ceiling of the hall which itself was unimaginably high.

The young mouse thought hard about everything it knew about the old Gods. Judging by the giant's appearance – a blue torso, black back legs with bright purple feet and, above all, a bright wight head – it realised it was looking at the Small Bone God.

The giant appeared to have just picked up an object from the ground. There were three more of those still towering over the ground; they were of red colour, and had a shape of a cylinder that narrowed into a thinner cylinder at the top. They'd been there for quite some time; every once in a while, one of them would disappear, and when they were all gone, they would soon be replaced by another dozen from which, as the young mouse figured out, the Bone God would take again.

The giant spotted he was being watched. He looked directly at the young mouse which was too afraid and fascinated to move.

"hello, little friend," the God said.

Then, it sighed and vanished in a flash of blue colour. The shine was so bright it blinded the mouse for a few seconds.

When it could see again, the young mouse took a while to take whatever just happened in. A few of the mouse kin were lucky to see any God since they left the underground – and the young mouse just became one of the lucky ones.

Noone's going to believe this, it thought, and while still shaking all over its body set out on its journey back home.

* * *

And not too far away, a door screaked in protest as it was opened. In came Lynx and Sans in an awkward silence. The skeleton was carrying a bottle of ketchup; he had a few of these hidden inside one of the inner caverns. After a long and unsuccessful search, he would grab a bottle and go sit in the empty Grillby's, gathering his thoughts. On this day, it was the first time he brought company.

Sans was conflicted.

On one hand, he felt a little bit guilty for scaring the living hell out of Lynx. The Core was a scary enough place on its own, but his sudden appearance must have been frightening for the girl. Judging by how fast she ran in an attempt to get away, she didn't know it was him walking through here and leaving all the notes everywhere. He could have just as well been a crazy human-hunting monster left behind when the others left for good. Sans felt sorry for what she went through and only hoped she knew that she wasn't in any danger.

On the other hand, however, he was mad that he had found her there in the first place. Had someone seen her going in, they would probably both be in a lot of trouble; and had she fallen someplace with no escape, she'd probably slowly starve to death as he would've had no clue where to look for her or, as a matter of fact, that she's in the underground at all. A part of him thought that she had brought this on herself, not only going to the mountain without him but even visiting The Core which he specifically told her to avoid.

And while he knew it wasn't fair, Sans also blamed her for taking away his hopes. When he heard the unexpected rapid footsteps trying to get away from him, the tiniest part of him thought he might finally have found who he was looking for the entire time. Up to this point, he had searched almost the entire complex with no luck whatsoever so he was becoming really desperate. That frustration was also boosting his anger.

But again, he wasn't going to yell at a scared, crying girl. He was a monster, but he wasn't a _monster_. That's why he suggested they needed to talk elsewhere and preferably calmly. He only regretted he couldn't offer Lynx anything to drink as well.

Some time had passed since their encounter in The Core, and Sans came nowhere closer to figuring out how to resolve this.

He sat on a bench at an (obviously) empty table in the corner while Lynx was walking around and observing the pub.

"I assume the jukebox won't work?" she said eventually.

"nah, it's been broken long before we left."

Lynx nodded and walked behind the bar. Sans watched her.

"i don't remember if i said it already, but..." He hesitated. "i'm sorry i scared you like that back there."

"Yeah, me too," Lynx replied, refusing to look at him. "I mean, I'm sorry I was there in the first place."

"that, i would like you to explain." Sans took a gulp of ketchup. "i tried to explain how unsafe it is to even enter the underground in the first place..."

"I know, save it," she said irritatedly and disappeared out of his sight for a short while as she bent over behind the bar to pick something up from the ground. "But in case you haven't noticed, you're coming here all the time. Which reminds me..." Lynx looked at him, her eyes narrowed; " **you** weren't supposed to be here today, either. You told me you were out of town and you can't take me to the underground, and yet there you were."

"hey, don't try to change the subject like this, i asked first." Sans watched as his friend finally decided to come by and join him at the table.

"How 'bout this," Lynx suggested; "We'll take turns, one question – one answer at a time. We both have things to apologise for, apparently."

He drank more ketchup and caught her slightly disgusted gaze. "you know, i may not like the way you behave, but i like the way you think," he told her. "so, my first question was: why did you come here today, knowing i've forbidden you to do so?"

Lynx sighed. "I... had a pretty rough week behind me, so I wanted to get away from everyone. I didn't want to go into the mountain, but when I was at the terrace... I just couldn't resist. You know, this place was a real haven for me since the first time you showed me around. It's so nice and quiet here, and I'm always having fun when you're around..." Sans felt a weird pinch inside and quickly looked down at the table. "...and I think I just needed to remind myself of that. That... there's a place where I'm welcome. Even though, technically, I'm banned from being there," she smiled.

"to be fair, maybe i am a little too cautious about all that," he admitted. "i just really don't wanna risk that anybody finds out. no monster would believe you ever again had someone seen you."

"Are you sure that's what you're protective of?" she asked accusingly. "The fact that I met you down there makes me thing that you want to protect yourself in the first place. You even told me before you were going here on your own, and I think you don't want anyone to find out because you fear they might start watching you."

Sans took several seconds to just look at her. She was smart, there was no doubting that. And he was beginning to think he won't be able to keep any secrets from her.

"to answer your question: both are correct. i don't want you to get into any trouble, but i also don't want the underground to become heavily guarded or something. i have my reasons to keep coming back."

"Those being?"

"hey, it's my turn to ask," Sans winked and took a sip of the ketchup. By that point, the bottle was half empty. "learn the rules, young lady, you made them up yourself."

"Sorry, I'll try to _catch up_." She smirked.

"heh." It may have been the drink talking, but regardless of the situation, the skeleton couldn't help but notice how cute Lynx looked when she smiled. In fact, now that he looked at her... It felt like that was the first time he noticed she was even there. Sans inspected her face carefully; even though she was worried and preoccupied with serious topics, she looked adorable. He didn't know where it came from so suddenly.

This entire thought process happened within a fraction of a second. He quickly looked away in fear she might notice he was staring at her.

"aaanyway," he continued to bring his own attention from it, "here's a good question. why were you in the core? you knew I didn't want you to go there."

"Yes, but you never told me why. The way you put it, I thought you just had reasons to avoid that place, so the only chance for me to see it was to go in there on my own." Lynx was playing with the thing she previously picked up from behind the bar; Sans now saw it was a small worn key. "I mean, I was just walking through New Home and came across a huge building with the word CORE written all over it, would you expect me to just walk away?"

"it would've been nice of you, yes."

"Well I'm glad I didn't, because now I can at least ask the next question..." She leaned forward. "Why were **you** in The Core? Especially since you told me you didn't wanna go there."

Sans feared this question. He was trying to make up a dozen of excuses, but all of a sudden, none of them seemed good enough.

Lynx knew what was happening inside his head. "Come on, Sans," she encouraged him. "I don't know what's your problem with that place, but you can trust me."

"can i? you just betrayed my trust like an hour ago." He smiled at her, hoping she knew he wasn't entirely serious. "then again, i did break yours, so I think we're kind of even."

"I want to make something clear, dude," she said. "I might have went to the underground without you and that was wrong of me, but I **never** even hinted to anyone at what we were up to for the last few weeks. So I would say I've proven to you that I can keep secrets." A brief pause. "Also, I thought you knew you don't have to be afraid to tell me anything. I won't judge you."

"heh, thanks, i appreciate that." Sans took a deep breath and almost finished the bottle. Halfway through, he figured he'll need the rest of the ketchup after he's done talking.

* * *

"i'm looking for my dad," he said.

* * *

"What?" Judging by the look on her face, Lynx wasn't expecting something like that.

"let me explain." He deliberately looked at the table and started talking.

"i barely even remember my dad, he's been missing since me and paps were small. the important part was that he disappeared and noone knew what happened to him for sure. and believe me, i asked. i heard some strange things. some folks said his experiments went wrong..."

"Experiments?" Lynx asked. "Oh, sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you."

"well, he was the royal scientist. people that knew him always talk about him with great respect, so i guess he was a genius. he was actually the one who created the core, along with many other things. but what matters is that something went wrong and we became orphans. i'm not gonna tell you what me and papyrus went through as kids, that's a whole different story. but... not that long ago, i got this stupid idea that he might still be alive. so i've been looking in the core whenever i could.

see, monsters don't age the same way humans do. you could ask the old gerson and he'd give you an hour long lecture about that, but put simply... when two monsters have a child, they give it some of their own magic energy to keep it growing. this link connects us and it's what makes a family. that's why monsters who don't have children age much slower, and the same goes for children who's parents died.

and one day, i realised me and papyrus haven't stopped growing when dad disappeared, which makes me hope he's still out there somewhere. someone told me that it's said he fell into his own creation, so my biggest shot was to search the core. without any luck so far, i might add. and, well, that's how you found me today, after one of my unsuccessful trips."

Once again, silence filled up the pub. Sans refused to look at Lynx. This was the first time he actually said this to anyone. While it did lift a certain burden from his chest, it also reminded him how miserable his search had been so far.

"by the way, you're the only person in the entire world who knows this, so i really hope this stays between us," he added.

Lynx stood up, walked next to him and put her arms around his neck.

"I'm sorry," she simply said before she pulled back.

"thank you," Sans replied.

"And I'm sorry there's nothing else I could do to make it better," she continued.

"hey, just that you're here actually helps a lot." The skeleton finally looked at her and smiled. "let's forget it for now, shall we?"

"If you wish..." Lynx sat back at the table and watched him drink the last drops of ketchup from the bottle. "Hey, just to change the subject for a little while... Where do you think this belongs?" She pointed at the key which she found earlier and was now laying on the table.

"hmmm... a lock, that would be my guess."

"Thanks, I thought I should use it as a fork." Lynx looked around. "It's too small to open a door, so maybe there's a safe or a chest somewhere around here."

"i thought you said you didn't wanna look for treasures in the underground?" he asked her mockingly.

"Screw you, I'm just curious." She left the table and went to look behind the bar again. "Did you know the owner?"

"oh yeah, me and grillby were great pals. quite naturally, i was his best and most frequent customer."

"So what do you think, was he a kind of person to keep his keys laying around?"

"oh no, he's one of the neatest and most organised monsters i know. if i hadn't known him, i'd say his lifestyle is kinda _f-lame_." Sans chuckled. "oh right, you don't know. he's a walking torch. anyway, that being said... he was in such a rush to leave snowdin when the barrier disappeared, i think he might have left a few things behind. when i first came here after we left, this place was messy. well, by his standards, anyway."

"A-ha!" Lynx reached somewhere above her and shook with something. "Sans, the key, please!"

"would you look at that, you were right!" The skeleton used his powers to transport the key across the room, right into her hand.

"That's _handy_." Something rattled. "Oooh, look what Grillby was keeping from his customers!"

Sans stood up and approached Lynx as she took a tall bottle of... something from a previously locked cabinet.

"now that I see that, i remember grillbz talking about something like this one time. he said he was saving that for his daughter's twenty first birthday."

The two of them looked at each other.

"How old is his daugher now?"

"i dunno, like, twenty four i think."

"Soooo... Grillby probably doesn't miss this thing."

"probably."


	6. Chapter 6 - Gone

_Hiya! So, I have lately been realising that this story does not have that much potential to be enjoyed by a huge amount of people. Judging by the more popular fanfics and fan comics I've been reading, most people wanna see ships and creepy Gaster / Chara / resets related stories. :D And even though there is Gaster in this particular fanfic (which, after the previous chapter, I could FINALLY make public - I've been dying to let you know for the longest time!), I admit there's not that much canon Undertale happening. Still, I'm enjoying writing this, and I'm all the more thankful for each and every one of you who reads this. :)  
Also, I've recently been following a considerable amount of Frans related comics on DeviantArt. It got me thinking... In my first fanfic and this universe I've created for myself, I've already paired Frisk with Asriel; but now I'm considering starting anew at some point as I now find Frans equally cute. :D Which UT ship do you prefer? Let me know, I'm curious!_

* * *

 **Chapter VI: Gone**  
 _(Sans's perspective)_

"how long?"

"Ninety-eight percent. Are you finished with the coolant system?"

"almost," Sans said as he watched the improvised power indicator. "we shouldn't get evaporated as soon as we step inside."

"Amen to that, it's hot enough in here on its own." Lynx glanced over to the monitor. The corridor was ninety-nine percent lava-free.

"yeah, like you need any help being _hot._ " Sans was still looking at the power but shivered in a muted, nervous laughter.

Lynx giggled. "Shut up."

The bottom floor of The Core was built at the lava level; as far as Sans knew, there were only a few rooms on this floor, mostly for monitoring purposes. Without regular maintenance, or perhaps as the levels of magic in the underground were getting smaller and smaller, lava had found its way into the corridor which connected this floor with the rest of the complex. Fortunately, not only did his dad build the walls using materials extremely resistant to high temperatures (in which, presumably, magic also had its role) but also provided each room with a pumping system in case the lava found its way inside after all.

Still, they had to make sure the coolant system would be working as well. As low as they were, the temperatures were way above pleasant, even with the heat-proof walls around them. Sans had previously told Lynx that he spent a lot of time just trying to make the system work _eleven floors_ above them, that's how bad it was. He could only access the next floor by making the previous floor habitable.

Sans remembered her reaction when he told her all that she wanted to know about his trips to The Core.

* * *

They were sitting at Grillby's and neither of them wanted to leave until they finished the bottle that Lynx found. Given what both of them went through and, in the skeleton's instance, talked through that day, nobody could blame them.

"i'm actually about finished down there," he concluded. "i just have to access one section at the bottom floor. lava has gotten into one corridor so i have to make the pumps work first. then again, the fact that the only exit is blocked might as well mean that dad could be trapped down there.

i have nowhere else left to look, anyway," he added, took a sip and passed the bottle to Lynx who was patiently listening. "not in the core, that is."

"Wow." She drank as well. "So you could say that getting through that lava corridor is a _hot topic_ now?"

"yup, i really need to make that last section _lavailable_."

"Are you _fired up_ to make the pumps working?"

"more than that, i'm _pumped_."

Lynx blinked. "Man, I practically gave you that one."

"yes, you made a _gave_ mistake." Sans laughed and she gladly joined him.

"How do you plan to do that, anyway?" she asked eventually. He gave her a wide explanation; it was pretty similar to how he had previously told her how he made the coolant systems at the top levels work again. Sans could have told the short version, but Lynx looked at him so enthusiastically that he guessed she wanted to hear as much as she could about his struggles with The Core. As much as he wished to believe she was actually caring that much about him, he figured it's probably just her fascination with technology.

When they finally left the underground late in the evening, they (or him, rather) had already agreed that Lynx would accompany him on the last few visits he had left in The Core. Maybe if he wasn't a little keen to that thanks to the alcohol, he would have thought twice. But if he had to be honest with himself, the drink did nothing else but mute his insecurity. Sans **wanted** Lynx to join him on his trips, for a few reasons – the joy of her company alone being just one of them. But he was also afraid to let her, or anyone for that matter, so close to something so personal. Not even Papyrus knew what he was up to, although in his case, Sans only wanted to protect **him** from such a complicated issue.

But Lynx was right, he thought. He could trust her with his secrets.

"Not that I'm trying to be a downer," she asked as they reached the town's outskirts; "but what if your dad isn't there? What then?"

"eh," Sans shrugged. "might as well start searching elsewhere. i'm gonna turn the whole underground upside down to find him. but as i said, the core is my best try."

"And what if he's not **in** the underground at all? Ever thought about that?" Lynx wrapped her hand around his arm; Sans shivered just a little bit. "Don't get me wrong, I really want you to find him. I just don't know if you're maybe putting too much hope into this."

The skeleton noticed two things: that they were, contrary to their habit to split just outside the forest, still walking forward, furthermore looking way too _friendly_ to each other; and that it didn't bother him at all.

"honestly, i don't know where else to go. this world-" he waved his hand in the air, "-is too big to search whole. the most i could do is try to visit the monster communities around the world, see if he's out there by any chance... but i just feel that if he's not in the underground, i might as well give up."

Lynx caressed his forearm to comfort him. "That's sad."

"nah, me and paps managed to live without him most of our lives," Sans opposed. "it just sucks not knowing where he is when he could be, you know, with us, that's all."

"If it's any consolation, I have barely ever seen my dad since I was twelve," she confessed. "My parents got divorced and he moved for work. Well, he's been moving a lot, actually. I only get to see him on Christmas and... most of my birthdays."

"oh." Sans fought the urge to give her a hug. "do you miss him?"

"Of course I do! ...well, sometimes. We care about each other, no argument there. But I guess we had to learn to be independent on each other. Given the circumstances, I mean."

"i know what you mean."

When Sans went to bed that night, he couldn't help but feel gratitude that he and Lynx knew each other. To him, it appeared as if they have met like two lost souls and now found solace together.

That, however, didn't justify the certain level of... interest he felt for her. He was never one to bother with feelings like that. Of course he's had a fair share of relationships in his life, but he was always that kind of a calm guy who was on top of things ( _heh_ , he smirked as his thoughts reached this ambiguousness). Not that it meant he never cared about any of the women in his life; only that he wasn't used to any confusing, questioning feelings like those he had now regarding Lynx. Dating used to be fun. This seemed... way too serious, somehow.

As Sans as he was, he solved this conundrum simply by falling asleep and leaving it for another day. And then the day after that, and the day after that...

* * *

Several weeks later, naturally, the skeleton wasn't any smarter about the whole situation than before. At least he learnt to be fine with it, settling only for subtle suggestions and trying to be less grumpy when he talked to her. Having Lynx cooperating with him on recovering the bottom section – something which, as he interpreted it in his head, was actually important to him – had helped a lot. If nothing else, the feeling of restless anticipation kept his mind off her. Most of the time.

"Sans, the corridor's as clear as your skull," he heard her informing him.

Sans sighed. "'kay. the cooling should be doing its best, we got a few minutes to spare. in the meantime, we could bake some pizza in there," he added with a wink.

"Are you nervous?" Lynx asked. Since she was no longer needed at the monitor, she walked next to him and sat on one of the inactive computers.

"not really, i've made a few pizzas before. i know what i'm doin'."

"I meant about finding your dad," she specified. "And now I would really love some pizza, thanks a _skele-ton_."

"how 'bout we go get some later?"

"Hey, do you know who you remind me of?" Lynx said with her arms crossed. "Some douche who's dodging the question."

"i would've got there. eventually." Sans breathed out deeply. "that's a tough one. on one side, i try not ot have high hopes. somewhere deep, and i mean **really** deep inside of me, there's a voice of reason tellin' me it makes no sense to assume dad's in there," he pointed at the door. "but on the other side... i must at least try, you know? it's not like me to give up right before the end." He recoiled. "actually, it's very much like me. but i'm making an exception for family."

"Now that I think of it," Lynx looked at him and kept kicking the metal box beneath her softly with her heels; "I feel like I should be surprised by how much time you've spent here, you know, doing something."

"ha ha. welp, maybe i do tend to avoid work. but there are always things that just... have to be done by you and you alone. besides," he added as he checked the temperature, "i can't pretend not to care about dad anymore."

"How's the weather?" she asked.

"little too late for pizza, i guess. we should be ready to go in a few." Sans looked her in the eye for a brief moment before his gaze shifted to the side; he rubbed the back of his neck nervously. "and hey, i wasn't kiddin' there. we could go get dinner after this. if you want. no pressure."

Lynx smiled. "That would be nice. We haven't hung out properly for a while now. I mean, without worrying about anything."

The skeleton sighed again. "believe me, it's been really long since i've not worried about anything. i actually owe you, having you around kept me more or less cheerful. so... thank you, i guess."

"Don't mention it, the feeling's mutual. It's me who should thank you for the opportunity."

"i wouldn't call it an 'opportunity', it just kinda happened. remember?"

"Yeah, because of that storm. Guess I should be glad I have that fear after all." She laughed bleakly.

Sans looked at his monitor again. "aaand there, we're free to go inside. It's still gonna be bad, though, i couldn't get the ventilation running as well. there seem to be some damaged circuits in this area, and it's not worth reparing." He pressed a switch; something clicked.

"Being lazy again, Sansy?" Lynx stood up and watched the door slowly open.

"screw you, we're likely not gonna be there longer than an hour, and even finding the problem in the circuits could take at least a day. We could see it immediately if all the computers worked, but..." He waved his arm around the room instead of finishing the sentence.

The walls were surprisingly still intact, although a lot darker and more crackled than the rest of The Core. Upon opening the next large door that was positioned at the end of the corridor, things turned back into normal.

"Should we split?" Lynx suggested.

"no, i wanna see every corner of this place on my own." Even though Sans was trying hard to play it cool, his voice was trembling a little bit. It was the end of his search throughout The Core. The moment of truth.

One room, two rooms, three rooms, then seven, twelve, thirty...

"welp, that's settled, then," he said after quite some time. "wherever dad is, it's not in the core."

"Are you sure we haven't missed a room or two? Or broom closets?"

"lynx, you were there all the time. we opened every door, looked behind every wall, and i'm pretty sure i even saw a mouse hole back there. he's nowhere to be found." Sans turned around and peeked into the last room they just saw, at the very end of the complex. "can you give me a minute, please? i have to do something."

"Of course. I'll be in the control room."

"thank you."

When he was alone, Sans sat down on the ground, leaned on the wall, and closed his eyes. If Lynx was still here, she'd see a blue light shining from underneath the closed eyelids. Nearby, a few unused machines shivered as if they were afraid of something. The walls croaked softly as they refused to give in to the sudden energy that flowed through the environment and was looking for something to destroy.

It all stopped once Sans opened his eyes again.

 _Hold it together, man,_ he said to himself. _This doesn't mean a thing. Only that it's gonna take a little longer._

Just to be absolutely sure, he stood up and attached a few more paper notes to the walls as he walked back to the entrance. Just that his dad wasn't here now didn't mean he couldn't come at some point in time. That was the same reason he left all those messages throughout the rest of The Core.

Lynx was waiting for him in the control room like she said she would. Without saying a single word, she took two steps forward and pulled the skeleton in for a tight embrace.

 _At least there's_ something _nice in my life right now._

"So... what now?" she asked once she let go of him.

"now, i just wanna get out of here," Sans anwered. "after that, i'm not sure. i might pay a visit to my old house sometime, see if there's something that could help. there's a lot of junk i didn't wanna bring outside. old newspapers and such."

"And by 'you', you meant 'us', right?" Lynx didn't forget to specify.

The skeleton couldn't help but laugh. "of course. if you want."

"I thought we were beyond questioning that."

"if you say so..."

They set off to the top floors; Sans wasn't able to magically bring them all the way to the town from down there so they had to walk some distance. As they began to climb up the stairs, their voices were slowly quieting down until they became mere echoes at the staircase.

"And hey, you owe me dinner, remember?"

"oh yeah. wanna go to grillby's?"

"What? That abandoned pub?"

"i meant the new grillby's. in town."

"Really? I don't think I've ever heard of it."

"welp, it's kinda new. grillbz spent some time travelling, but returned one day to open a new business. he said he missed it too much."

"Okay, I'd love to. Better not tell him about that bottle we found, though."

"i sure as hell ain't telling a thing. by the way, grillbz has a pretty decent pizza. he bakes it _himself_."

"Was that a pun?"

"oh, right, you don't know how he is. just wait until you see him, you'll get it."

Soon, stillness and silence returned into The Core. Only the paper notes which were layed out all over the place softly trembled every once in a while, but nobody was there to see them.

And yet, there was something else moving...

He seemed to be born out of the shadows. Maybe he heard the passing voices, maybe he just went there by coincidence. Nobody was there to ask him.

He found one of the paper notes, took it in his hands and read it. Stood motionless for a few seconds. Then, he sighed deeply and tore it to pieces.

And then, he was simply gone.


	7. Chapter 7 - Promise

_Hello! Yes, I know, I'm a week late with this chapter. The good news is, not a lot of people read this story so it almost doesn't matter? :D Still, like I promised - I'm about to write a short story about Jerry as punishment. If any of you have an idea for a plot, feel free to let me know in the PMs. The story will appear eventually in my Stories From Undertale one-shot compilation (see my profile).  
Also, merry Christmas to y'all and a happy new year! :)_

* * *

 **Chapter VII: Promise**  
 _(Lynx's perspective)_

As one month was slowly, stealthily replaced by another, the town was, for the most part, still the same as before. Adults were rushing through their daily routines, while not many little children were seen throughout Summer as most of them were spending holidays whenever their grandparents lived, giving their parents an opportunity to make more money instead of looking after their sons and daughters. That was why the town appeared to be mostly inhabited by teenage kids who considered themselves old enough to be trusted with self-responsibility. Over the past eight years, it was becoming less and less unlikely to see humans and monsters hanging out together, so the problem wasn't there.

The problem was that kids always tend to gossip, namely when it comes to relationships. Naturally, when a certain high school graduate was seen a couple of times with a pun-filled skeleton, the word spread quickly.

Every once in a while, Lynx had to explain to her friends that she and Sans were not dating. As far as she knew, anyway.

Truth be told, she wasn't 100 % sure how she felt. All she could be certain about was that the skeleton acted as her best friend at the time. As she stressed out many times, Sans was one of the very few people she knew she could always rely on, especially since noone else seemed to have the time for her. Regarding all the kids who, for whatever reason, felt like it was any of their business when they saw the two of them together, Lynx granted them with an excruciating unconcern.

Perhaps, though, dating **would** be a nice bonus. Sans was interesting, funny, and charming in his own complicated way. The trips they took to the underground, the stories they shared and the task they were up to definitely bonded them in a unique way. But was that enough to expect their relationship to naturally transform into a romantic one?

At the end of the day, maybe it didn't really matter. The important thing was that they were able to spend time together, and as long as they were, it was irrelevant whether or not they would be holding hands or whatever. A strict distinction was unnecessary to Lynx.

Maybe she would change her mind eventually if Sans felt something above friendship. That's how men think, she thought. They either like you as a friend, or they love you. There's no "something in-between" or "I don't know" in their world, even if they'll never admit it. Guys love to think they always have things under control, but in reality, it's usually the things that control **them**.

Since the skeleton, no matter how nice he treated her, never mentioned anything about a sincere interest in her, Lynx figured he just wanted to stay friends and decided to drop the subject herself.

That could absolutely not stop her from enjoying his company. Since they failed to find his father in The Core, Sans didn't feel like returning into the mountain for a few days. They used that time to meet in the town. Sometimes they just ate lunch together, sometimes Sans would introduce her to some of his friends (while Lynx wanted to do the same, she still remembered the impression that the skeleton left in most of her friends on the day they met for the first time). One day, for example, he convinced her to come to a tea party organised by Muffet, a spider-like girl who ran a small bakery and apparently used to invite her friends over for tea very often. There, she also met Asriel with whom she wanted to talk for a long time; he arrived with his girlfriend who was the only other human there. Even though she didn't really speak with Frisk, Lynx could tell just how much she and the monster belonged together.

Finally, Sans asked her to return to the underground with him. As he said earlier, he wanted to dig into his old piles of newspapers in hopes to find any valid information regarding his dad. What seemed like an interesting journey through the monsters' past to Lynx was about to be a huge amount of boring speed-reading to the skeleton. She suspected him of inviting her for this particular task on purpose, knowing she might find it more entertaining than him.

His house in Snowdin looked just like one would expect: deserted. There were only a few pieces of furniture left here and there, like an old worn-out couch and a kitchen sink. The walls were empty, the windows and floor were covered in dust. There were no spider webs around; this area was probably too cold for them. And, Lynx remembered, they wouldn't have anything to eat in the caves anyway.

"make yourself at home," said Sans.

She looked around. "You know, now that I think about it, this phrase is really creepy. It kinda suggests that you want me to move in with you, don't you think?"

"huh." The skeleton ascended the stairs to the second floor and she followed. "would 'make yourself comfortable' sound better?"

"A little. It still sounds like you're not willing to provide the comfort for me."

"not my fault you didn't bring your couch."

"I didn't want to carry it _sofa_ away from home."

Sans opened a door at the end of the corridor with a chuckle. "i know what you mean."

He did indeed. His room, in contrast with the rest of the house, looked like he had never left the underground in the first place -except for a thick layer of dust everywhere. There was a bed, a desk, a treadmill, and general mess all over the place.

"A part of me wants to believe that the fact that you didn't bring the old stuff up actually had a deep symbolic meaning." Lynx curiously took a step in and retracted again; her foot was imprinted into the dust like a track in the snow. "Do you have a vacuum around here, by chance?"

"step back, sweetie," said Sans and his eye started glowing.

A single snap of his fingers summoned a pocket-sized tornado which briefly turned the room into a chaotic dark cloud. Sans used his magic to open the window, and the microhurricane carried most of the dust outside.

The skeleton breathed out. "satisfied?"

Lynx was coughing brutally. "Y-yeah, Sansy, th-thanks a lot."

They both went inside. Sans knelt by his bed and reached underneath to pull out a cardboard box. Upon opening it, Lynx saw a pile of newspapers.

"How many are there?"

"here? a little under 365 would be my guess. this is a whole year worth of papers." He blinked and added: "the bottom ones must be really _pressed_."

She snorted. "Nice one, I'm im _pressed_."

Sans dug back under the bed. "don't worry, i only took this box out so i could get to the one behind." He showed up with a pretty much identical box. "so that I could get to the one **behind** this one."

"How long have you been collecting newspapers, dude?" she asked while the skeleton once again reached into the depths of underneath his bed.

"since i was about eight. which, by the time we left the underground, was eleven, maybe twelve years." Sans seemed to have found the exact box he was looking for. "but if you ask how old are the oldest of my papers: they go as far as my dad's first press appearance." There was a word GASTER written on the side of the box in black marker. There were only a few newspapers inside, compared to the other boxes.

"i began looking for these just to have any kind of clue who my parents were. most i know about dad, i know from these." He took the box, quickly turned it upside down while splatting it onto the floor, and pulled up. The short column of newspapers slid out of the cardboard with ease. "i didn't even know his name at first. i looked for monsters who fell down or disappeared shortly after papyrus was born. and, well..." Sans pointed at a photograph of a tall, skinny monster who smiled exhaustingly into the camera. Above, a thick title said: ROYAL SCIENTIST MISSING. Lynx, getting a nod of approval from the skeleton, took the paper and unfolded it.

"doctor w. d. gaster, the accomplished royal scientist," sans quoted, seemingly having memorised the report, "has been missing since last thursday. shortly after being seen running into the core, et cetera, et cetera. people thought there was some kind of trouble in the core that day, and dad had an accident. some saw it almost as a heroic act, sacrificing himself for his work. but noone seemed to actually know what happened."

"You know," she suddenly realised something; "I can't believe I haven't asked you sooner, but... You always talk about your dad. What about your mum? Was she also not around? Have you looked for her?"

Sans sighed. "that seems to be one of the bigger mysteries. no matter how hard i looked, i never found any kind of evidence that dad had a wife, or any kind of woman in his life. monsters who personally knew him, even asgore himself, don't know anything either. one would almost believe me and paps were born out of thin air." He took hold of a small pack of papers. "therefore, gaster seems to be the only person who could tell us about her."

They began to read through all the newspapers in hopes to find something that Sans might have overlooked. Each time Lynx found a fact that was new to her, she told the skeleton about it; he always said he already knew that.

However, her mind was only halfway with the papers. She couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to grow up an orphan. Lynx felt much empathy for Sans who's first memory of his dad was seeing his face on the title page of cheap newspaper, linked with the word 'missing'. She realised she never asked him what life was like for him and his brother; until now, it never truly occurred to her how much he must have been through since he was a kid. It apparently wasn't a time he wanted to remember.

Sans seemed to know what she was thinking about.

"hey." He looked at her, and Lynx returned the gaze. "don't worry about me. i haven't had it easy, but in the end, what's the point in worrying about the past if you can't change it? and my life now is awesome." He smiled and added: "i've got you, after all."

Lynx felt butterflies in her stomach and blushed. In her head, she promptly cursed the skeleton for saying that.

Looking through the papers from the Gaster box for the next half hour, they weren't able to find anything new. Lynx learned, however, that the monsters' idea of newspapers consisted mostly of crosswords, with a small amount of actual reports in between them. It was actually rather rare that any kind of news was so important to make the front page.

"Alright," she said as she put down the last of the papers; "what now?"

"i dunno, perhaps we could look through all the other 4,000 papers." Even saying that seemed to have made Sans tired. "in case you don't have a better idea."

"I do, we should take a break."

"that's my favourite kind of work schedule."

"I just wonder," Lynx asked and stretched her back; "what age were you when your dad disappeared?"

"three. i didn't have to take the responsibility right away; me and paps were at an orphanage until i was about seven or eight. i guess someone must have found us in dad's lab. we escaped eventually because, well," he smirked, "i was always prone to getting in trouble with authorities."

"Like what?"

"oh, don't even get me started on this one." Sans looked into the distance as he recalled some funny memories. "i was always a prankster, and most adults don't like their office turned into an aquarium."

Lynx laughed. "Why?"

"she was a bitch, anyway. but honestly, keeping myself -and others -laugh just kept me away from the fact that i was miserable."

"Just like it does now?" she guessed.

Sans looked at her with a frisky smile. "nah, now it's just hillarious."

"Anyway," Lynx continued, "you said you were found in your dad's lab, right? Have you ever gone back to that place?"

"couldn't. asgore claims it's been destroyed, and alphys who became the royal scientist after dad disappeared had a brand new one built in hotlands."

"Perhaps the old lab's still underneath the new one, huh? That would be cool."

"i thought about that too. alphys did have her own basement, but she never told anyone what she keeps down there..."

Sans' mouth suddenly stopped and he froze mid-sentence for a second.

"...and never let anyone in," he finished slowly.

"Don't get too excited, that doesn't prove anything," Lynx warned him.

"but it **might** mean **everything**!" he shouted. "lynx, you're so smart and you don't even know!" He briefly clenched her in his arms, and before she could react, Sans was already under the bed again.

"Thanks, I guess? I didn't do anything."

"yes you did, you asked the question that i've been failing to ask myself for the longest time. what if the old lab was never destroyed at all? what if alphys only told asgore she got rid of dad's old stuff while she kept it to herself for further research?"

"Or what if she just had a sex dungeon in the basement?" Lynx watched the skeleton pull out yet another carboard box with her arms crossed. "You know I really want you to be right about this, but what are the chances?"

"we'll see. i'll ask alphys personally as soon as i can, but since we're here..." Sans pulled out a few newspapers. "...we might as well look if there's anything confirming our theory. and, fyi," he added with a wink, "who says you can't have a basement lab **and** a sex dungeon in one building?"

"I shouldn't have said that," she groaned and grabbed a small amount of the puzzle-filled journals. "What are we looking for exactly?

"these papers," Sans explained, putting one copy down and opening another one, "are from the year when the construction of the new lab begun. there were always little news to report, which means that basically anything even remotely interesting could get into press. if we find a hint in any of the articles about what happened to the old lab..."

"Like this?" Lynx showed him an article which included a short interview with Doctor Alphys. "She says here that she doesn't know yet if Gaster's lab is going to be of any use to her, and therefore doesn't call for deconstruction yet. That's, like, two more percent of a chance, I think."

"man, i can't believe i'm so stupid," he said while he briefly read through the article. "i was always looking for my dad, but never for anything related to his work. save for a few blueprints which someone sold me when i was young. he **claimed** they were from his lab, but what do you know..."

"Hey, you're not stupid." She smiled at him. "Just a _bonehead_."

"you make it sound so endearing."

A few moments later, Sans jumped up excitedly.

"there!" he handed over an article for Lynx to read.

"Okaaay... The new royal scientist, blah, blah, blah... 'I am going to save all of Dr Gaster's equipment for further use, although I'm not sure when the research which the king requested will give me the time to properly examine his former work.' You're right, that sounds kinda promising."

"keep reading."

She looked at the passage where she stopped. "'A few of the machines he used are built into the laboratory itself, and some of them are simply too large to be carried from there. We'll have to see what can be done about that.' Oh!"

"oh indeed!" Sans stepped closer. "looks to me like she wanted to save the old lab and the equipment inside so that she could continue dad's research, whatever it was."

"And she never told you?" Lynx gave the newspaper back to Sans. "That sounds like the exact kind of information she should have told you."

"well, like i said, she was very secretive about her work. at first i thought she just wanted to surprise everyone once it's done, but she confessed later that she didn't want anyone to know in case her research fails."

The skeleton stood up and stretched. "but now, it seems like a good time to interrogate her some more. if the old lab still exists, i have to see it."

"Right. And by "I", you meant "we", right?"

Sans looked at her. "sorry, lynx, but i have to go without you this time. at first, anyway. alphys shouldn't know we hang out in here. but," he added with another of his famous winks, "you'll see it eventually, i promise."


	8. Chapter 8 - Never Return Again

_And tadaa, here's a new chapter, and on time, even! There's some more insight into my idea of Gaster's backstory. Although you (spoiler alert) will have to wait a few more updates for the biggest reveals... :D  
Also, yay for Alphyne and Asrifrisk ships!_

* * *

 **Chapter VIII: Never Return Again**

 _(Lynx's perspective)_

It was a good thing she already knew where Alphys' laboratory was, thanks to Sans. Because of that, Lynx could just sit around and wait for the two of them to show up.

The crucial part was, they couldn't notice her.

It was really important to the skeleton that the royal scientist didn't know anything about her visits to the underground. It was bad enough -as he told her the other day -to admit **he** had been going inside against the prohibition. Lucky for him, Alphys understood his reasons once he explained everything, except, obviously, he couldn't give any credit to Lynx for anything he discovered with her help.

As for the supposed second, secret lab: the scientist confirmed Sans' suspition, but refused to say anything else on the spot, rather suggesting she would accompany the skeleton down there and tell him the whole story once they're inside. Then again, Lynx who as far as Alphys was concerned might have never even existed couldn't come with; but that didn't stop her from deciding to follow in secret. She was way too curious to sit at home and wait for Sans to return.

Lynx suddenly heard a sound of distant conversation. Her heartbeat accelerated and she curled up behind a boulder which had been providing her a sufficient cover for the last two hours she spent waiting for the monsters to show up.

Soon, the two voices became clearer and were joined by four feet stomping on the ground, echoing through the empty caverns and coming back to Sans, Alphys, and Lynx in her hiding spot in circles.

"I appreciate you came talk to me, instead of snooping around the lab behind my back," she heard a woman's voice.

"i figured i'm gonna need a guide," Sans replied. "besides, we haven't talked in ages, so this is a good opportunity."

"Right, you've been busy going down here, weren't you?"

"you have no idea. these trips told me more about dad than anyone before ever. well, that doesn't mean there's a whole lotta to know."

"I can't deny I'm curious. I-I mean," the woman stuttered, "in case you want to talk about it?"  
"i don't see why not."  
Something clicked and was pushed to the side. Lynx dared to peek out; she saw Sans and Alphys, a rather small reptilian monster with yellow skin wearing a semi-long black dress, walking inside the laboratory through the now open door. She recalled the skeleton had told her that he was barely ever around the lab before and didn't remember its layout, which meant his magical teleportation was a bit risky – he could end up reappearing inside a wall, "...which would basically _rib_ me in half," he said then. She had to smirk.

Lynx made sure both monsters were really inside and did not seem to look behind, and then she followed them carefully.

"...and that is all i know so far," she overheard Sans finish a sentence.

"I can't believe even Asgore didn't tell you much. It makes me think Gaster was very sensitive about his privacy."

"it appears so. i mean, noone seems to know anything about my mother, perhaps the two of them were forbidden from being together. but i can't imagine why."

Alphys looked at the skeleton, unknowingly turning her back to Lynx who watched hidden behind the corner of the entrance. "Crap, I forgot there's no power in here anymore. Here's the elevator that leads down, but..."

"hold on, this door that seems to lead to the bathroom?" She saw him wink. "that's smart. i mean, it's insidious, but it's smart."

"Thanks. Anyway, we'll have to get through that wall in the back, there's a ladder that leads to the basement. I think I might have a screwdriver lying around here somewhere..."

"just stand back, al," said Sans before Alphys could turn around and go search for the tool. With a single "Huh," she did.

The skeleton's eye started to glow and he pointed forward with his hand. Something quickly materialised behind him.

"Wait," said Alphys nervously; "you don't have to-"

That materialised something opened its mouth and blasted a prism of energy inside the elevator shaft; a violent noise of exploding metal broke the silence. Behind her corner, Lynx gasped. She knew about Sans' magic abilities and participated in his teleportations more than a few times, but seeing what amount of destructive power he could single handedly summon... It put the whole magic thing into a brand new light. Now she realised how powerful the monsters really were; she remembered that the reason humans attacked them and imprisoned them inside the mountain in the first place was because they were scared of their abilities.

Ironically, as her history teachers told her, the monsters' powers were, at the same time, their biggest disadvantage. Since their bodies were made of magic rather than biological matter, most of them were extremely vulnerable to physical attacks; even a child would be able to take out the biggest monster with their bare hands if given the opportunity. A monster would have to absorb a human's soul in order to become resilient.

All of this crossed her mind as she watched Sans briefly turn into -no other description seemed to fit at the moment -a killing machine. Suddenly, the distinctiveness between him and Lynx was more present than ever before.

And yet, to her own surprise, it didn't bother her all **that** much. If anything, she felt more respect and curiosity than before. And a little bit of pride that she could call this skeleton a... friend?

Alphys coughed; Lynx snapped back into reality. She saw the duo standing there in a thin cloud of dust; Sans had his hands in his pockets like nothing extraordinary was going on at all.

"sorry, doctor. you know i'm not very _patient_."

"You know I'm not a medical doctor so your pun makes no sense." She raised her finger at him. "And don't you dare say it makes no _Sans_ or I swear I'll turn around and leave you here."

"wow. someone's not in a joking mood."

"I'm sorry... It's just, this was my home, so I'd appreciate it if you treated it with **some** respect."

"ok, i get it. no more explosions." Sans gestured towards the elevator shaft. "ladies first?"

"Sure, whatever." Alphys walked inside, followed closely by the skeleton.

This is it, Lynx thought in her hideout. This is the last chance to be a good girl, turn around and pretend I was never here.

 _But do I really want to be a good girl?_ Screw it, what's anyone ever gonna do to me? Sans might be a little upset if I get caught, but it's not like they're going to murder me.

A few minutes later, she found herself in a dark basement. It resembled The Core a little bit, with its narrow corridors and use of a similar material, but the walls were darker and it wasn't as hot in there. And much to her disappointment, there weren't that many spots for her to hide in case she ran into the two monsters.

She hastened forward through the corridor until she heard them talking again and slowed down. When she peeked around the next corner, she saw a rather big room filled with beds. Sans and Alphys were sitting in front of each other; the scientist looked nervous.

"are you serious, al?" the skeleton asked in a minor shock. "gee, i had no idea."

"N-now, at least you... see w-why I couldn't bring myself to-to tell anyone." Alphys looked down at her fingers. "Even after I brought the amalgamations back to their families a-and everyone seemed to have forgiven me, I... I didn't want them to know w-why it happened."

"hey, from my point of view, you were just doing your duty as a royal scientist. you shouldn't blame yourself for something you couldn't have possibly known."

"Yeah, you're right. It's not as bad as it used to be, but... it s-still hurts, obviously." She lifted her head and looked into his eyes. "You're not telling anyone, are you? E-especially Undyne."

"relax, i'll keep my teeth shut. but do you really think undyne would think less of you for this? you've been together for eight years and you're getting married next month, i don't think this would change anything."

"I don't wanna risk it."

"i get it. can't say i approve it, but i get it." Sans stood up. "now, can we go take a look at it?"

"Yeah, sure."

Lynx watched as the two left the room through a door to the far left of her; she waited a few seconds and then followed them.

"Doctor Gaster," she overheard Alphys explain, "did the same kind of research before me -he was to create a power strong enough to shatter the barrier. The weird thing is, while he conducted the research on artificial souls and determination, I don't think he did both of them simultaneously. It looks like he failed one and focused on the other, but not for the same purpose."

"what makes you think that?"

"Look at everything he left behind as his legacy. The Core, the determination machine, countless minor successes I found when I was beginning to use this place... Asgore must have told you Gaster wasn't happy when he wasn't working on at least five different projects at once. He did some outstanding work, but he left much of it unfinished."

"what about this one, then? you said you finished it for him?"

Lynx glanced over to the next room. The monsters were standing in front of a tall machine; it resembled a disfigured head of some animal, and a single pipe was sticking out into the room.

"Yes. I found some of his old blueprints and built this. Gaster was close to discovering determination without even realising it, and disappeared before he could finish this research."

"and you said he studied souls as well?"

"Based on a few hints I found in his work, it seems he had the opportunity to study a human soul, apparently the first one we've... I mean, it used to belong to the first human that fell into the underground. Excluding princess Chara, of course."

Sans looked at Alphys silently for a second. Lynx knew how much this information impressed him; it was an important and valuable piece of his father's life.

Still, the things they discussed so casually were starting to make her sick. She knew monsters, for a few decades before they acquired their freedom, were in a formal state of war with humans, meaning they intended to kill every human that would fall down and take their souls. Put simply like that, it didn't sound all that terrifying. But it was a whole other thing to listen to it. Maybe when she meets with Sans again, Lynx thought, she should find the time to ask about the events that took place before Frisk won the monsters over.

"so dad met a human," the skeleton said out loud. "do you know anything about them?"

"Not much, I was young when it happened. Asgore told me she just showed up in Hotlands one day without catching any attention in Snowdin or Waterfall. Strange, right? Anyway, they captured her, took her soul and put the body in the castle's catacombs; and then, Gaster was ordered to focus on his soul studies. That's all I know." Alphys sighed and added: "I don't think anyone even cared to learn her name. Poor woman."

"and he vanished soon after that."

"That's right."

"a'right, new question;" Sans put his hand on the machine as to examine it closely. "what else did you build from dad's blueprints?"

"Oh, nothing. When the... experiments with determination turned out so horrible, I took it as a sign not to interfere with Gaster's work again. I went into the garbage dump and disposed of them. Later, I regretted it and went back for them, if only to have a memento. But they were already gone."

"hey, at least now i know how i got mine." The skeleton laughed cheerlessly. "i once ran into this dude in the capital who was selling these papers full of sciency stuff, signed w. d. gaster... the poor guy must have thought it was just some kind of weird art." Sans turned his head towards Alphys and Lynx, unknowingly, and winked. "i could give them to you as a wedding present, if you're up for it."

"Heh, that would be nice... But maybe you should keep them to yourself, don't you think? He was **your** father, after all."

"maybe we'll take turns, then." He laughed again. "and hey, i was meaning to ask you a couple of times today, but it was never the right time, so i'm just gonna ask now... how are you doing? you know, with the whole 'wedding' thing going on..."

Even though Lynx only saw her back, she could tell Alphys was blushing a little. "Yeah, well, I'm freaking out, but... I couldn't be happier. A part of me just wants all the stress to be over already... But at the same time, I'm looking forward to it. I-I just fear I'm gonna screw something up."

"you're not. and even if, you'll have frisk at your disposal, right? me too, of course, but i'm not your maid of honour."

Alphys sat down on the ground; Sans joined her. "Yeah, Frisk has been amazing with everything. I don't know what I would do without her. I wish she'd pick me when she'll be getting married, I want to repay her for all I've been putting her through lately." She laughed.

"well then, be careful to tell her as soon as you can, her wedding might be closer than we think."

The scientist looked at him in surprise. "W-what? Did Asriel say something?"

"no no no. it's just, they look so perfect, i can't think of any other outcome for the two them than marriage somewhere down the road." This time, they both laughed. Lynx had to silently agree; she only saw Frisk and Asriel together once, and they struck her as the exact couple that would be together until the end of times.

"imagine, though, how are people gonna take it. a marriage between a human and a monster. i don't think this has ever happened even in the old times."

"You're one to talk," Alphys nudged him.

Sans flinched. "the hell're you talking about?"

"Oh please, don't act like you're not all over a human girl yourself!"

"and who told you this bullcrap?"

"Like, everyone in town? I'm... sorry, it didn't occur to me they were just rumors."

The skeleton sighed deeply. "they're not. i have a thing for this girl, but we're far from being a couple. and i'm not willing to change that."

"What? Why?"

"it's... complicated. i've been so busy searching for dad, and she's moving out of town in a few weeks anyway. and she doesn't like me back anyway, not the way i like her." He smiled in an attempt to make Alphys stop worrying. "it's not a big deal, really. in fact, forget i said anything. just as i'll try to forget about her."

"Ok. Although, one more thing, if I may?"

"sure, whatever."

Alphys looked in front of her, and to the past. "When I met Undyne, I was convinced there was no way she'll even like me as a person, much less fall in love with me. I was trying to forget her too. Heck, had it not been for Frisk, maybe we wouldn't end up being together at all. And look at us now, we're about to get married, we're thinking about adoption..."

"i see where you're going with this, and i'm gonna stop you right there," Sans interfered. "i think i'm way better at forgetting than you. no offense."

"Says the one who can't let his father go after thirty or something years without him?"

"fair point. but," Sans stood up and helped his friend on her feet as well, "we have to keep trying, that's what everyone teaches us." He put on a sour smile. "and, speaking of dad... i'd like to move on, if that's okay with you?"

"Yeah, sure. There's one more thing I wanted to show you down there," Alphys gestured towards another door. Not long after that, the room was empty and silent.

Silent save for a barely audible heavy breathing of someone who tried her best not to cry. Eventually, those sounds stopped too, and Lynx turned around and hurried back to the ladder, upset and convinced that she would never return again.


	9. Chapter 9 - He Had To Know

_So, this was probably the hardest chapter for me to write so far. I never wrote a dialogue quite like the one in here (you'll know what I'm talking about when you see it), so I wasn't really sure how to do it. Besides, complex emotions are kind of my thing, but they are hard to explain.  
Also, maaaaybe we're getting another step closer to some ultimate revelations...  
_

 _Edit: This story just hit 1,000 views! Thanks a ton, everybody! :)_

* * *

 **Chapter IX: He Had To Know**  
 _(Lynx's perspective)_

Lynx didn't sleep well that night.

It was one of those completely wasted nights. She tried lying on her back, on her sides, on her belly, and one time even rolled over horizontally to see if she could sleep better with her head at the bottom of her bed. She kept closing her eyes and opening them a few decades later, only to find out that they didn't feel any more tired than before. She stood up to open the window when her room felt too warm, and closed it again after an hour when she was too cold.

When she wasn't trying hard to fall asleep, Lynx was attempting to make some sense of her situation, wondering where everything got so tangled up.

First of all, there was the skeleton's confession she wasn't supposed to hear. Why did it hurt so much to know that Sans didn't want to be more than friends with her? She tried to look at it from every possible angle, and the only outcome she could see was that the monster was at least a little dearer to her than she was willing to admit to herself. Perhaps she knew this for a longer time, but never truly realised. And now that she did, there were just an awful lot of things to deal with.

The most logical thing, Lynx thought, would be to reveal to Sans what she felt. He didn't believe she was into him and decided to give up his own feelings if they were not to be reciprocated; maybe all it would take to change his mind would be to see there was hope for changes to the better.

But did she really want this? The way the skeleton spoke about her behind her back was painful. _He wants to forget about me_ , she thought. _He's waiting until I'm gone for Massechusetts, and then he wants to forget about me._

It bothered her that Sans was being -no other way to describe it -such a coward. For one, believing she wouldn't be able to like him completely stopped him from trying to change that. Then, because he didn't want to stop seeing her entirely, he kept taking her to the underground as well as spending time with her in town; that would have probably been somewhat devastating for him in the long run, but _luckily_ , he was aware that she was leaving for school soon and the problem would solve itself without him having to do anything. Lynx knew him well to know this was his kind of behaviour, and if she wanted to be honest with herself, it did make sense this way. But it hurt her that... she wasn't worth any trouble for him. If she really was that special to him, wouldn't he at least tell her what was bothering him? Either she would be up for a more romantic relationship, or, if not, they would at least have this big secret out of the way and they could both move on, if over some time.

But no. She was just _something to forget_ to him.

There might still have been hope for Lynx to fix everything, but the key part was, she couldn't have let Sans known that she knew what was bothering him. That would mean to admit that not only did she go to the mountain without his supervision again, but also that she's been spying on him and Alphys. And that was something she hated herself for at the moment. Before she did it, it seemed like a great idea. But ultimately, she felt horrible for betraying his trust -and not only because of what she overheard. She promised to herself that should she been given another chance in the future, she would never do something so stupid again.

All in all, her last secret trip to the underground the previous day had a high price to pay. She was left with a severe case of insomnia and a whirlwind of emotions that were hard to ignore, and there didn't seem to be anything to be done about them.

That's why, when Sans called her the next day to ask if she wanted to come with him to see Alphys' secret lab, Lynx wasn't all that sure how to respond. She told him she wasn't able to talk at the moment but she'll call back later. She used the time that excuse bought her to think about all the pros and cons there were.

She wasn't exactly mad at him, or at herself; she wasn't scared, she wasn't either disgusted or attracted to the skeleton's presence. She just felt chaos, and she wasn't so sure that seeing the source of this chaos so soon would help a whole lot.

However, she knew she would just keep going crazy barricaded in her room, left with nothing but her own head. Plus, she still considered Sans her friend, and because she knew how much she meant to him, she would only feel worse to let him down or even let him know what mess she was at the moment. That was why, when she picked up the phone and called the monster, she was convinced to agree with his proposal, which she somehow managed to do without stuttering or sounding too nervous.

Still, it was really awkward to be by his side.

"hey, what's the matter?" he asked after a suspiciously long time during which Lynx hasn't spoken any more than 10 one-syllable words.

"Nothing," Lynx told him with a colourless expression.

There are some situations in life that just end up pushing you down no matter how hard you try to stay on top of things. It's like a whole part of your brain has been shut down and you can't seem to recall what it's like to act like a "normal" human being. Maybe it was an adequate reaction of her consciousness to all the overwhelming madness that she has been forced to go through. But it meant that her mind desperately focused solely on basic instincts, like walk and speak only when asked a question. Other than that, Lynx was a human equivalent to a vegetable, which hasn't been left unnoticed for long.

"for 'nothing', it looks quite like 'something', lynx. are you really okay?"

"Yes."

"come on, we don't have to play this game, do we?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

"fine, if you don't wanna tell me, i won't opress you. just let me know if you change your mind."

"Sure."

They reached Alphys' laboratory in Hotlands in a mixture of irritating silence and -to Lynx, anyway -even more irritating sound of the skeleton's voice as Sans was doing his best to keep the conversation somewhat fluent. Maybe he was hoping that seeing the secrets of the old lab would cheer her up just a small bit, but little did he know, of course, that she already saw and heard most of what was interesting about that place.

As they climbed the ladder down and he began to describe what he learned from the royal scientist the other day, Lynx reconsidered that this probably was a bad idea after all. Sans seemed to have realised that when they arrived in the bedroom and he looked into her dead face.

"look, lynx, i know you insist that nothing bothers you, but this isn't the normal you. maybe we should just call it quits today, what do you think?"

"Yeah, I guess you're right." As bad as she felt to admit it, she was actually pleasantly surprised that he gave her an outing.

"a'right. there's just one more thing i wanted to show you, and then i'll take you home, ok?"

"Ok."

This is it, she told herself. Just five more minutes of this torment, and then you'll be free to go.

Lynx let the skeleton leave into the corridor first and stood for a couple of seconds, thinking while she was looking at his back. Suddenly, out of nowhere, the voice of her conscience spoke up. Was this right? To treat Sans this way, after everything he's done for her? She knew how much it bothered him to see her like that; just as much as she knew there was nothing she could do about it at the moment, other than leave and try to explain it to him another day somehow.

Or did she? Lynx felt another poke of guilt inside her and realised that Sans at least deserved... something. To hear her admit that she's not feeling good, that she appreciates him being concerned about her, and that she'll talk to him again once she's got this thing figured out. It just wasn't right to keep the monster completely out of it, no matter how much he may or may not have unknowingly hurt her.

He still liked her, and she liked him. After all, wasn't this -not talking about how they felt -part of the problem? The more people avoid the contanct, the further they grow apart, and it's that easier for them to keep avoiding each other, closing up the circle. Someone had to break the circle if they didn't want to eventually become conclusively distant.

Lynx sighed and stepped forward. She'll _have to_ tell Sans some day that she sneaked into the mountain again. Maybe she won't tell him about what she heard him say -that would only complicate everything more. If someone was to blame for her current state, she thought, it was better to involve less people. And less feelings.

"hey, what's this?"

She looked in front of her. Sans squatted to pick up something on the ground, an object too tiny for Lynx to see from the distance.

She walked towards the skeleton. "Sans, listen-"

"wow."

Somehow, the skeleton managed to spit that one syllable with so much surprised disgust that she immediately knew something was terribly wrong.

"Sans?"

He slowly turned around and looked at her. His expression barely changed, but he looked like he could get triggered really easily. In his hand -Lynx' heart suddenly fell deep into her stomach...

"do you have any idea what this little guy is doing all the way down here?"

...he held an earring, a simple black circle with a pirate-like symbol on it, a skull with two crossed bones underneath. Lynx dug those earrings up one afternoon and wore them on the day that Sans took her to the underground for the fourth, maybe fifth time. They had a prolonged conversation about them, and she ended up wearing them often since then. Including the day before, when apparently one of them fell off right where the skeleton found it. She recalled that she missed one at home, but she was too disconcerted then to really care.

That was some of the worst luck she's ever had.

"lynx," he asked her; "were you following us yesterday?"

Just say something, her mind pleaded. Say you don't know where the earring came from. Or say you slipped it into his pocket last time you met, because reasons. Just say _something_!

But Lynx knew well she was busted, so she just looked into the ground in shame, short for words.

"alright, look," Sans said, and she heard from his voice that he was more than just very disappointed. "i tried to explain to you how dangerous it is for you to come here alone, especially when you knew there would be monsters who could see you."

"Well you never told me what kind of punishment-" she tried to chirp bashfully.

"let me finish," the skeleton slightly rose his voice. "it would have been one thing if you just went into the underground without anyone knowing. but you also had to sneak up on us like some kind of thief when i thought i could trust you. i don't know about your background, but where i come from, friends don't do this to each other."

Lynx was _this_ close to shouting back an apology, telling Sans everything about how bad she felt about it and that she wouldn't do that ever again. But at the same time, after his last sentence, she realised how hypocritical he was being. He wasn't the only one feeling betrayed.

Suddenly, she just wanted to fight back. She knew she messed up, but that didn't mean she would let him get out of it like a saint.

"What do you know about being a friend?" she proclaimed and managed to look at him.

She caught him offguard by her sudden change of pace. "what on earth do you mean?"

"You're in no place to judge me, Sans! I only kept this from you once-"

"twice," he reminded her. Lynx pretended she didn't hear that.

"-but you've been lying to me the whole time! You wanna talk about keeping secrets? Well, how come you never told me what I really meant to you?"

"oh. so, you heard that too..." Sans gulped in slight confusion, but then attacked her again. "dammit, lynx, don't try to make this about yourself again! you came here in secret and eavesdropped, and yet you pretend to be the victim. you're unbelievable."

"Yeah, and how long have you been planning on forgetting that I existed the second I move out of town?"

"that's not what i said!"

"No? Because the way I see it, you're too much of a wuss to talk about what you're feeling, and you're taking me for a problem that is going to take care of itself. And **that** is not how friends treat each other."

The skeleton's left eye was beginning to glow.

"at least now i know you weren't worth keeping close in the first place."

"Can you even hear yourself? Are your precious rules about the underground really more important to you than being honest with your friends?"

"that's not the same, and you know it!"

"No, it's not. At least I'm not being selfish."

They stared each other down, both of them frowning and breathing heavily.

"i don't have to deal with this," Sans said eventually and turned away. Next thing she knew, a blue light flashed and he disappeared. Lynx stood there alone all of a sudden, with nothing but a bitter taste of a very arguable victory and a lot of question marks.

She managed to walk out of the corridor and back to the bedroom, but there, she collapsed on the nearest bed in tears. Her anger began to recede, making space for remorse. She knew she never would have said any of those things -not in such manner, anyway -had she been able to think straight. Her behavior of the last two days might have just cost her someone who was really dear to her; first her secret journey to the lab, and then this.

When she stopped sobbing into the dusty white blanket, Lynx tried to recall everything that happened during their brief fight. She made some remarks that she regretted, but so did he, it seemed. Sans must have realised she was upset by his actions as well, otherwise he wouldn't have ran away.

It was clear that none of them really wanted to hate the other one. Sure, they were upset with each other and with themselves just as much. But perhaps these feelings bloomed from the simple fact that they cared about each other.

In her thoughts, she came back a couple of weeks earlier, when Sans caught her in The Core. He was mad at first, but he was able to forgive her pretty quickly. Maybe she didn't deserve yet another chance now, but she still hoped he wasn't one to hold grudges. As for how he treated her... Lynx thought she should give him another try, just like he did for her before. Maybe now that he realised he hurt her, he might want to talk about everything.

She wasn't sure if she should wait some time, or look for him immediately. But as she brought herself on her feet again, she knew they were going to have to talk sooner or later. They were both acting like idiots.

Lynx glanced over to the corridor leading back to the determination machine. There was a tall sillhouette standing at the end of the hall looking at her.

She flinched and blinked. When she looked again, the person wasn't there anymore. It all happened so fast that she didn't even have time to get properly scared.

 _Was the man really there?_ she asked in her head. Lynx tried to recall what she thought she saw. A tall and skinny figure, dressed in some sort of black robe above which only a bright white head seemed to be floating in the air. A white head with a few dark crackles around the eyes. A white head that resembled a fractured skull.

She carefully and quietly walked towards the spot where the man might have stood. Maybe it was just her imagination, but she wanted to be sure in case it wasn't.

When she walked into the next room, there was no sign of anyone anywhere near. But a mechanical whirr caught her attention. The determination machine was growling softly, and the pink liquid was dripping, drop by drop, into the bucket which was stuck under the pipe. Lynx couldn't remember if the bucket was there the day before.

And then, as if there weren't enough surprises for the day, she spotted a small piece of crumpled paper on the ground near her. She walked over and picked it up. It said: I KNOW YOU'RE HERE.

She hasn't felt so confused in several weeks. One thing was for sure, there was someone lurking in the true lab, and Lynx suddenly realised she didn't want to meet them just yet. She turned around and hastened back to the elevator shaft.

When she climbed the ladder, she was convinced she needed to find Sans as soon as possible. It wasn't out of question that she just saw his father, and if that was the case, he had to know.


	10. Chapter 10 - All The Time

_Hello, dearies! This has been another hard chapter to finish. Partly because I had some crucial finals in the way. But, I managed to succeed at all of them, yay! Let's celebrate by giving you a rather sad part of the story. :D You might wanna argue that I'm going against canon Sans a little bit, but hey: my only source of info and inspiration is the original game itself, and nothing I do contradicts anything explicitely given. I try to make everything as believable as possible, out of sheer respect for Toby's work.  
Also, I noticed in the stats that there are some folks from mah crib Czech Republic reading this story as well! To je super, ahoj! :D_

* * *

 **Chapter X: All The Time**  
 _(Sans's perspective)_

The small basement has always been very tidy, much unlike his room upstairs. This was a place that he _wanted_ to keep clean, for it was a little bit like a shrine dedicated to his dad. He used to keep all of Gaster's blueprints down here until monsters moved to the surface. Sans also had a few of his own memorabilia hidden in the drawers, mostly pictures of people he used to know before he and Papyrus moved to Snowdin; that eventually led to losing touch with almost all of them.

The only thing that the skeleton left behind was a busty horror of a machine, his attempt to build one of the projects out of Gaster's blueprints. Sadly, Sans was no scientist, and no amount of quantum physics books could give him the proper education he would need to be even remotely as great a scientist as his dad used to be. He gave up on that project a long time ago, and even after he had been given the opportunity to study any human university, he no longer had any desire to be anything more than a science enthusiast.

One of the reasons Lynx impressed him was, of course, that she wanted to do it, too. Unlike him, she still had her whole life ahead of her, and could dare to actually study what she loved. Or maybe she was just brave enough to do so. Unlike him.

He breathed out.

Sans wouldn't be able to count how many times he sighed thinking about her and everything that happened for the past three hours or so, since he ran away from her and decided to hide in Snowdin until he was able to speak to anyone again. He didn't doubt that she was at home at that point, probably cursing him to all of hell's nine circles at once. He couldn't blame her.

His little plan felt good before, but that was only because he forced himself not to think about it too much. When he was confronted with the whole reality of it, he realised how selfish, cowardly and stupid he's been. And how smarter Lynx was compared to him. Sans was good at many things, but apparently, being a good friend wasn't on the list.

 _why did i even stop seeing everyone in new home?_ he asked himself. At the time, he kept convincing himself that he just had too much work as a sentry, but remembering how he always tried to avoid work as much as possible, he knew that was a load of bullcrap. As long as he could remember, he never kept anyone close unless they were seeing each other on regular basis. Long distance relationships, of friendly or romantic nature alike, were too much of a commitment.

And Sans was always terrified of commitments. As strange as it might sound, he never had trouble making new pals wherever he came; in the long run, however... He was simply a lonely type. When he was a child, he had to learn to take care of himself; and he also learned that taking care of anybody else was dangerous for his feelings, and an enormous responsibility he was just never ready for. Eventually, Papyrus and some of Sans' friends, like Frisk, did their best to prove him wrong, and even though they've gotten through to him a little bit, there was still a lot of work to do in that field, that was for sure.

Plus, Sans has always been refusing to deal with unpleasant business. Underneath his ever-shining smile, obnoxious puns and pranks, good-hearted nature and caring heart, he was really, really fragile, and he never let anyone see that -except for Lynx.

Oh, Lynx. Why did everything have to turn into a total chaos?

The skeleton grabbed a bottle of ketchup next to him and finished what was left of it. He then sent the empty bottle through the air to the corner where it met its three predecessors. Those were all he had left in the underground.

Maybe it was about time to go home? Sans knew it would be reasonable, but his thoughts still weighed him down. He hid his face into his hands and tried for the thousandth time to figure out who should apologise to whom.

Little did he know that Lynx was about to solve this puzzle for him.

Through the haze, he didn't hear the crunching of someone's footsteps in the snow outside, until they were right behind the door. A second later, a shy and gentle knock-knock lightly echoed through the basement. "Sans?"

For a moment, he wanted to pretend he wasn't there, or even disappear somewhere far away. But he realised Lynx never went home. She must have rushed through the Waterfall area in hopes to find him. She was apparently ready to make things right, and dammit, if she could do it, then he should man up and try as well.

Not saying a single word, he gestured lazily towards the door. It shined with a blue colour a tiny bit, and slowly opened at his will.

Without missing a beat, Lynx walked in and looked around before her eyes saw him sitting on the floor, giving her a look which basically said there was no point to giving her any kind of look. Any kind of emotion shown might have been wrong at that point.

"I had a feeling I might find you here." She took a few steps towards him and stopped at a fair distance, like she was afraid Sans might blow up in anger.

"really? why's that?"

"Well, I thought you'll be at Grillby's, but I saw footprints leading here before I could reach it." She smiled faintly. "That kind of gave it away."

"would you look at that. when it comes to tracking someone down, you definitely have the _snow-how_."

Lynx grinned again. "So, um... I assume that since you make puns, you're not **that** mad at me anymore?" She sat down on the ground, her back leaning on the counters.

Sans sighed. "i would, but... i don't really have the right to be mad, do i? only cast a stone if you're without sin, or whatever."

"You've read the Bible?"

"once or twice. it's funny how a **book** changed billions of lives all around the world, throughout entire centuries."

"Yeah. ...sorry, I'm not in a mood for philosophical debates."

"right." Sans scratched the back of his skull. "so... you wanna begin, or should i go first?"

"I'll start." Lynx took a deep breath. "So, yes, I broke my promise and went into the underground by myself... again. The second I got outside, I felt terrible about it, I am really sorry and I never want to do that again."

He smiled lightly. "you never got into trouble in your whole life, did you?"

"Well... no, actually. Not that I never did anything that was against the rules as a kid. After all, breaking the rules is sometimes the only option." Lynx looked at him almost amusedly. "Remember that?"

This time, he even chuckled. "yup. if i hadn't taken you inside the mountain that thay, none of this mess would have happened. but that statement doesn't quite explain why you had to go here yesterday in the first place."

She sighed. "I don't know. I don't like feeling left out, and... I wasn't thinking straight. I was curious and stupid, that's all I can say."

"i guess it was partially my fault too, like 20 %. you know i would bring you if i could, but i didn't want alphys to see you."

"Why not? What exactly would happen if Alphys knew that I've been down here?"

Sans took his time before he answered. Confessions were hard, especially admitting he did something bad.

"honestly, if you were caught in the underground, there would be standard trespassing fees -a few hundred bucks and/or a few weeks in jail, plus a criminal record, of course. but the true reason i didn't want you to come down here on your own was... well..."

"Well?"

Dissolving into particles didn't seem to be such a bad idea all of a sudden.

"at first, i was worried you might get lost and noone would ever find you again. but lately... i just didn't want you to think you don't need me. it was kind of an excuse to keep seeing you." If Sans had a functioning circulation system, he would feel all of his blood rush into his face.

To his surprise, Lynx nodded. "I thought that might have been the case. It sounds like you."

"explanation?"

"You're not one to talk about what you carry inside. That be nothing. 'cause you're a skeleton."

He snorted; Lynx smiled and continued.

"Look, we talked about this before. You don't have to be afraid to speak to me. I know you've been through a lot, and that keeping your distance is how you deal with things. But you have to realise: unless you're willing to step up and face your challenges, the world is just going to continue spinning without you. And you can trust me with everything.

Well, I know what happened yesterday kinda contradicts that," she added; "but I'm seriously serious this time. I don't want either of us to play games anymore. It's dumb and it can only make things worse."

"what if telling you the actual truth would also make things worse?"

Sans didn't just suddenly think about this, it has been on his mind for a painfully long time. Ever since he became attracted to Lynx -against his own will, one might add -he kept considering the pros and cons of both situations, which were either profess his feelings, or keep his bony mouth shut. He concluded that both scenarios would probably end up hurting someone, but silence was the path of less resistance and, ultimately, of less pain.

That being said, if there ever was a good time to say it, it would have been now. Now that they have opened the heart-to-heart discussion. Apparently, the time has come for them to clean the mess out of the way, so they might as well get rid of **all** of it.

At least that was what he thought. But...

"Sans..." she said, and he looked at her. Lynx sighed and he could see pity written all over her face. "I think I know what you mean by that, but... I don't want to hear it. At least not right now."

Before it sunk, the Titanic broke into two separate pieces. It then disappeared below extremely cold water and its wreck ended up approximately 12,500 feet deep in the ocean.

That was about how the skeleton's heart felt at that moment.

"Don't get me wrong, I like you," she continued, and he managed to patiently listen to what she had to say, even though she already half lost him. "I really do, even if being your friend means you drive me crazy sometimes. And I have thought a few times that us being together would make sense, but... I don't think it's something we should be dealing with right now. I don't mean to blame you for anything or even hold grudges, but as a friend, I have to say this again: you can't just sit around and let your problems solve themselves. You might... miss your chance."

They both remained silent. Sans' gaze was in the ground. Her speech wasn't as bad as he imagined, but the fact that he might have actually had a chance with her had he not been such an ass filled him with a fair amount of self-loathing desperation.

"wow," he said quietly after some time. "i'm really an idiot, ain't i?"

"It's never too late to stop being an idiot," Lynx spoke up. When he took a quick glance at her, she was smiling, sadly but encouragingly. "You're a great guy, Sans. Your only problem is that you let things get in your way."

"cheers to that," he nodded and reached out for a ketchup bottle which he completely forgot wasn't there anymore. "oh, right."

He stood up to gather all the empty bottles that were lying on the opposite side of the basement. When he was walking past Lynx, he felt her hand softly grab him by his wrist, causing him to stop.

"I'm really sorry, you know."

Sans turned his head and his eyes found hers.

"don't be," he said. "i'm gonna be fine."

She stood up, and they hugged. He realised that one hug can say more than a thousand words worth of apologies.

"Can we please forget that all of this ever happened?" Lynx told him when she pulled away. "I want my old friend back. I don't want to worry so much about... well, everything."

"your old friend never left," he replied with a wink. "you don't have to feel _bone-ly_."

She giggled, and Sans knew things were going to be alright. Eventually.

* * *

"Crap, I almost forgot!" she exclaimed all of a sudden about a minute later when they left the basement. "Sans, you might want to sit down."

"gee, what now?" Luckily, right next to the basement door was a bench, and he sat on it.

"I'm sorry, I should have started with this..." Lynx was suddenly uneasy, but somehow in a good way. "When you left the old lab, I stayed there for a little while, and..."

"you sure know how to keep the audience in suspense."

She took a deep breath and looked right at him. "There was... someone else down there. I saw him for like a milisecond, and then he disappeared."

Sans sprang up on his feet again. "someone else? a human?"

"I... don't think so. He, well..." Lynx obviously had to suppress a lot of excitement. "He looked more like a skeleton."

"a what?" he took two steps and stood directly next to her. "can you elaborate on that?"

She closed her eyes for a moment as she tried to remember. "He was dressed in black, all I could see from him was his head. White and round, with a few lines drawn from his eyes -or maybe they were cracks, I couldn't see them that well."

Sans' head spun; he had to lean on her shoulder for a second to regain balance. _at least i know why i was supposed to be sitting._ Everyone who knew Gaster good enough to know what he looked like said more or less the same thing: his face was pale and resembled a cracked wallnut.

"oh my goodness." He looked at her with an awe. "lynx... you might have found him."

"Holy fu- Sans, this is huge!" she actually laughed out loud and hugged him again for a brief moment.

All the months of endless search, despair, secretiveness... Within a snap of a finger, it was all worth it. And he had Lynx to thank for it. Without her, he might have never even thought to pay visit to the old laboratory in the first place.

"lynx, do you think you could spare some more time in the underground? i have to go there asap."

"Of course! I want to see the happy ending." She smiled like she had been given ten puppies for Christmas. "But don't get your hopes too high. Like I said, he might not even be there anymore."

"well, if that's the case," Sans stretched out his hand happily and Lynx took it, "we might have to keep coming back there all the time."


	11. Chapter 11 - Everything Has A Reason

_Hello and welcome back! I swear, the further I am with the story, the harder it gets to write anything new. :D This is more or less a transition between the previous and the upcoming chapter. But yay for cliffhangers!  
Also, by the end of February, my first fanfic 'First, There Was A Flower' hit 10,000 views! That's amazing. It's given me an idea that in my next story, I could come back to Frisk and Asriel and see what the two goofballs have been up to. But we're going to have to wait for that at least another few months. :)  
_

* * *

 **Chapter XI: Everything Has A Reason**  
 _(His perspective)_

Day by day, the sun was changing colour, indicating that Summer season was almost over. Soon, nature would begin to ever so slowly fade away to make room for the gloomy Autumn weather. School was about to start again, so those younglings that were concerned were hectically running the last errands they had left: visiting distant relatives, eating ice cream, swimming, camping or stargazing. After all, Summer is the best time to look at the night sky.

Of course, he didn't know any of that. He never saw the stars, and he stopped caring about time more than a decade ago -that was his guess, anyway. When there were still monsters in the underground, he was at least able to tell what time of day or year it was by observing. But since they left, the concept of "time" had no meaning to him. He was stuck in a world where nothing ever changed, and even then it was the most interesting thing to see when he left the void.

Besides her, obviously.

Doctor Gaster raised his hands and inspected them. They looked good; no dust leaking anywhere. That was a sign. He looked around the blackness embracing him and imagined he could see the link connecting him to the real world -which was stupid, of course, but he had spent so much time in this place that he could dare to fantasise about his surroundings. Anyone would do the same in his position, he believed. A mind of a living creature cannot cope with nothingness.

He closed his eyes and let the darkness consume him. As always, he felt as though he was being pushed whole through a tight sleeve. A moment later, the feeling passed, and Gaster looked around his old laboratory.

Sadly, there was no way he could know if she would be there already. It was always a shot in the dark. Last time he went there, he missed her.

Maybe it was because of the human girl he saw. Her sudden presence might have scared _her_ off.

She frightened him, too. It was a long time since he saw another living creature, let alone human. What was she doing in the laboratory, why did she cry, and who even was she -he didn't know. He just stared at her for a while, and when she finally noticed him, he panicked and escaped back to the void, concerned that he might, after so long, be discovered.

She was so young... It brought back memories. So many memories from such a distant history. When he still had everything: youth, respect, his work...

...a stable physical form.

And love.

At least at this point of his... life, or whatever he should call it, Gaster was far from holding any grudges. He had passed many stages of grief and anger over his unfortunate state. He had been blaming her, himself, Asgore for giving him that task which resulted in his exile, the humans for banishing the monsters underground in the first place... But ultimately, he decided that everything was too complex to point fingers at someone in particular. Too many events led to that single moment. It was best to just call it fate.

The former royal scientist looked around. He spawned in the corridor which led back to the coolers. The randezvous point was right ahead.

A white quiver in the corner of his eye got his attention. He turned to the left -and froze. There was a piece of paper on the wall; the same kind which he saw so much of back in The Core. It was only different by one word, otherwise, the message was still the same: WE KNOW YOU'RE HERE.

For a while, he was just looking at the piece of paper before he reached out and tore it to shreds, like he's done with each of the messages he found. Whoever was looking for him either simply gave up his search in The Core, or somehow tracked him down to the old laboratory. As far as he knew, Gaster was never leaving any evidence leading to his favourite location; the only thing that could lead them here would be her. Assuming they never had the chance to see her, he figured they must have decided to pay a visit to the old lab because of the importance it had in his life.

He remembered the human girl he saw last time, and concluded she was probably a part of a group, and she must have only seen him by accident.

He sighed and hoped they won't be around this time.

As he walked carefully towards the DT machine, the scientist thought he had to make a choice in the future. On one hand, the laboratory stopped being a safe place for him to be; if he didn't want to be found, he couldn't keep coming back. But on the other hand, she was always there, and she was the only company he had, and he wasn't sure how he would cope with everything without her.

He stepped into the hall with the machine. She wasn't there, and as far as he could see, neither was anyone else. That wasn't a bad start; but if he wanted to meet up with her, his condition only gave him a couple more minutes.

It was still strange to consider time again. At first, it was hard to get used to the void where there was no time at all; but after so long, this dimension seemed a lot weirder -and, ultimately, more dangerous.

Who knows, maybe Gaster would be able to actually enjoy the void had it not been so desolate.

He walked to the center of the room. He had to decide now; stay and wait, or go look for her? Last time he did that, he met the human girl. Perhaps it was safer to stay.

"heya."

Someone spoke up behind him in a voice so casual that against all odds, it didn't scare him at all. And the voice was kind of soothing, somewhat familiar, even though Gaster never heard it before.

He didn't turn around immediately. He refused to face the person who spent so much effort trying to meet him right away; he didn't know how to react. Obviously, this little game of hide-and-seek was definitely over now.

Gaster closed his eyes briefly. He'll figure out later what to do in the future. First, he wanted to know who the intruders were and why did they try so hard to find him.

"You should not have come here," he said.

"wow. your voice sounds a lot different than i expected."

The other person talked so carelessly it was suspicious. Someone who talks like that must **want** to sound careless.

Gaster took a deep breath and turned around.

Out of the corner of the room stepped a shadow; a rather short man with a hood over his head. As dark as it was in the old laboratory, it was no wonder he didn't see him before. Behind him stood a young woman -he recognised her immediately as the girl who he saw last time. She wore a black cap pulled down into her forehead so he couldn't see her eyes.

"Oh, really? What **did** you expect?" he asked, still more curious than angry.

"i dunno, something a lil' bit more _gast-ly_ ," said the short man and removed his hood.

Before he could react to that horrible pun, Gaster was stunned. The stranger was a monster, with a human-like skull for a head. Two light blue pupils which seemed to be floating inside his eye holes were the only things that differentiated him from an actual human skeleton.

Seeing his face set the gears inside the scientist's brain in motion, and even though they were rather rusty, his thoughts were slowly but surely going the right direction.

"You..." he asked, even though he subconsciously knew the answer; "who are you?"

"you know, i should be disappointed that you don't recognise me right away. but the last time you saw me, i think i was three years old, so..." The monster kept walking forward until he stood five feet away from him. "i don't blame ya."

"Three years old..." Things fell into proper places. "That must mean you are... You are Sans, right?"

"yes."

The scientist was flooded with so many emotions at once that he didn't know which one to follow first. His first born stood in front of him -his son who he hasn't been around for most of his childhood and reminded him of everything and everyone he once lost and, with Gaster's condition, he likely wasn't about to regain; in fact, he wasn't even willing to. But even though he was hiding from all monsters for so long and he was hoping he would be believed dead, Sans apparently never gave up on him.

"My son..." he said after a moment, still in a slight disbelief; "So it was you all along?"

"yup. been trying to find you for... maybe a year now." Sans took one more step towards him. "it's been no walkaway, either. but that's a long story."

"But... why?" Gaster couldn't get his head around it. "You must have gone through so much trouble, just to find someone you did not even know was alive?"

"well, i never considered the possibility that i have a father until i learned more about heritage and aging." Sans smiled -he seemed to always be smiling. "as you can see, me and paps never stopped growing up, which made me think you must still be out there."

"Oh, yes, Papyrus!" he remembered. "Why is he not with you, then?"

His son scratched his back and looked away. "i didn't know if i'd succeed. in finding you, that is. i didn't want to tell him i was looking for you until... i had something to come back with."

"So he believes I am dead." Gaster sighed. "I pity that I could not have been a father to him -both of you. But it is for the best if he does not know that I am alive."

"how so?"

"Because this-" he showed him his penetrated hand and smiled sadly, "-is not life. I do not know how much you know about my fate, but now I am nothing more but a shadow of who I used to be."

"you're still here, and that's what counts, is it not?"

Now the scientist laughed, for the first time in an eternity. "I am not really here, you see. I no longer reside in this world, at least not permanently."

Sans looked confused.

"I am... sorry it has to be this way. I wanted everybody to believe I was gone because... in a way, I truly am. I can only come here occasionally, and the more time I spend here, the bigger the danger that I'll perish for good is. It is rather complicated," Gaster concluded and closed his eyes briefly. His body was beginning to tingle; the time to leave was approaching.

"so where are you hiding to... prevent that?" his son asked. "I can accompany you there."

"You can, but I doubt you **want** to. Forgive the dramatic tone, but it is the place between life and death where I have been imprisoned since I fell to my demise." His head was starting to ache, and his breath was getting faster. "I call it the void."

"the void. ok." The skeleton took yet another step towards him. "so how do we get there?"

Now it was Gaster's turn to be surprised. "Trust me, it is not a place for someone like you. There is literally nothing, just emptiness."

"there's you, and that's all i care about. i didn't spend the last week here on patrol just to watch you walk away." There was just a hint of intimidation in Sans' voice.

"Um, excuse me," a quiet, shy voice spoke up, and they both turned their heads towards its owner. He had forgotten about the human girl; she had approached them without either of them noticing.

"oh, i'm sorry," Sans slapped his forehead. "lynx, meet my dad. dad, this is lynx. i wouldn't be able to find you without her help."

"Is that so?" Gaster inspected her from head to toe; the girl smiled at him faintly. "Tell me, young lady: How does a human become interested in a forgotten monster scientist like me?"

"Sans," she simply answered. "And for the record, I don't like being called 'young lady'."

"she means it, that was the first thing she ever told me," Sans added, and the two smiled at each other.

...in a way that was maybe too familiar to the former scientist. Like father, like son, it seemed.

"Well, then..." he started, but before he could finish the thought, he coughed severely. A little cloud of dust came out of his mouth.

"I apologise," he said afterwards, seeing that both his son and Lynx were looking at him worryingly. "I really have to go now."

"yeah, and i'm going with you, let's just take that as a fact," Sans insisted.

"And you're not going to leave me here, are you?" his human friend asked.

Gaster crossed his arms. "I am sorry, but the void is not a place where... physical objects can exist. I tried. But only magic is capable of surviving in that environment." He smiled apologetically and added: "I told, you it is not a place worth visiting."

"but-"

" **If** you are willing to accompany me, I will explain everything. But I do not have the time to do it now." Gaster closed his eyes and called out to his powers.

"i'm sorry," he heard his son speak with Lynx. "it seems this is the way it has to be."

"It's fine, you deserve this," she replied. "I'll just go home, ok?"

"ok. thanks a _skele-ton_." A few short steps, and then rustilng of two sets of cloth being pulled together. "i'll call when i'm back."

"Sans, I have to go now!" he spoke up tensely. His body was in pain, and the forces of the void were pulling on him. He opened his eyes just a little bit; he saw his son get out of an embrace with the human girl and run towards him; his own eye was starting to glow.

Within the next moment, the underground disappeared. The darkness was whistling around him; only this time, there were also several stripes of blue light. Gaster figured his son was the cause of those.

And then, they were in the void. Even though it was dark, he could see Sans perfectly. This world knew nothing about the concepts of light and dark.

He breathed out with relief; he felt the pain ease slowly, and the storm of dust inside of him calmed down.

"whoa. you weren't kidding," the skeleton said, turning around and looking for anything except for infinite nothingness. "what is this place, anyway?"

"I can only assume," said Gaster; "which I have had too much time for, so I think my assumptions might be rather correct. This is the interchange, so to speak, between our home world and the next one. Whichever that may or may not be. For all I know, there could be nothing once you left for the other direction, only death."

"sounds legit." Sans walked towards him and looked him in the eye. "but... how come you ended here? i've heard a few things about your presumed death, but nobody i talked to believed you were still around. much less this."

"So monsters still remember me?" the scientist asked, and smiled. "What do they say?"

"not much. only that you were a technical genius who disappeared mysteriously. oh, and two infants were found in his laboratory, but nobody ever knew he had a wife." The skeleton was visibly overwhelmed by the amount of questions he had been carrying around -and answers he was hoping to receive. "maybe when you tell me how you... ended here, you might continue with my mother."

Gaster sighed. It would seem there was no coming back from this point on.

By then, he was able to make a little more sense of all that just happened. He and his son were reunited; Sans was patiently looking for him for the longest time until he really did find him. And he wanted to know the truth.

He was never going to tell his story to anyone, but seeing how much trouble the skeleton went through to meet him... And he was his son. If anyone deserved to know, it would be him. He told him this.

"i don't get it. why wouldn't you want anyone to know what happened to you?" Sans asked.

"You will see," he said with a reconciled expression, "that everything has a reason."


	12. Chapter 12 - We Will

_So this was yet another hard chapter to write. :D Luckily, I had the concept pre-written six months ago, so all I had to do was re-read it and clear up some BS that I found. Also it was the last of the series of the more difficult parts, 'cause I'm not gonna present many more contra-canon theories from now on; plus, ...we're getting close to the end._  
 _Also, DON'T TOUCH DA CHILD! (This is gonna make more sense when you've read the whole thing. :D)_

* * *

 **Chapter XII: We Will...  
** _(His perspective)_

So, Sans... You wish to know the truth about me?

Very well, then. But let me warn you first: the truth hurts. You will not like everything you will hear, but please, let me explain everything at once. It is easier to tell the whole story at once and **uninterrupted**. Understood? Splendid.

So, as you know, I used to be the royal scientist. Before good king Asgore lost his children and declared war on humanity, I had only one mission: to make monsters happy. I created The Core; it was thanks to me that the underground had nearly unlimited power supply. I built puzzles to provide leasure for monsters, keeping them occupied so that they would not need to wonder about the unreachable life outside their prison. And the royal family kept giving me new tasks so that **I** would be occupied as well.

Life was more or less good for me, for all of us.

But all of it seemed to be forgotten when the royal family broke. First, the human princess Chara was taken by a deadly sickness. Not a day after that, prince Asriel, foolish as he was to leave the underground, was attacked by humans and came back fatally wounded; he turned into dust before his parents' eyes. And when the king decided to lead monsters to war, the queen left. Back then, she was one of the very few who spoke against the war.

King Asgore, and the whole kingdom with him, waited for a human to fall down into the underground to be captured, and I was supposed to study the nature of their souls. The king said it would help us if we were able to create substitutions for human souls – Asgore told me so that we could leave the underground sooner, but I had a feeling he just didn't want to take more lives than needed.

Then one day, she came.

I found her lying on the ground, exhausted and injured, not far from my laboratory. With great perseverance, she managed to outrun some monsters that attacked her in Waterfall, but when she reached Hotlands, she collapsed. I carried her to my home and took care of her. Make no mistake: the human was my prisoner and our enemy, and I intended to carry out the research I was appointed to once she regained strength. But she was also my patient; without me, she would succumb to her injuries.

I waited and kept her presence a secret. I wanted to surprise Asgore and only show him the human after she was healthy again. I thought that if he knew, he would force me to conduct the research regardless of her condition, and that could have unfortunate consequences.

But after several weeks, I realised that I was deliberately postponing that day. Once I earned the woman's trust -and she has earned mine -we spent the days in conversation, and I learned more about her and the world from which she came. Her name was Tahoma. She wanted to be an artist, a writer, back on the surface. She lived in dreams, she had a wild imagination, and always full of emotion. It appeared to me that Tahoma was an exact opposite from me. And yet, I could not help but grow more attached to her every day.

The more I was falling in love with Tahoma, the more I had to make sure nobody learned of her existence. It wasn't always easy. My other works have slowed down, and monsters started to ask questions. Besides, they were looking for her, so she could never leave my laboratory for her own safety. If I wanted to come back to my working schedule and also spend time with Tahoma, it ultimately meant that I barely ever left my home.

But lacking the company of others did not really bother me, because I had her by my side. For both of us, those were the happiest moments of our lives; even though we had to keep hiding and lying, we did not care because we had each other. And one day, she expressed her wish that she wanted a child.

I see the way you look at me, Sans. Your thoughts are following the right path. Have you never wondered why you are so close to humans in terms of appearance? Or why your magic allows you to do such extraordinary things, almost like you had a monster and a human soul combined? The reason is that your mother, Tahoma, was in fact a human.

The same can be said about your brother Papyrus who came to us two years later. Although he, from what little I know, has rejected the more... aggressive side of his abilities, he has the same potential.

It should have been the greatest time of our lives. Me, Tahoma, and our children. A happy family. I was waiting for a day to gain enough courage to finally tell Asgore, or at least any other monster, what I have done – what we decided to do together. I was convincing myself that the king would show mercy and give humans yet another chance.

But at the same time, sadly... something was pulling us apart. Perhaps it was the fact that Tahoma felt like a prisoner all the time; maybe she was getting homesick, or either of us had just gotten tired of seeing the same faces every day. Maybe the spell of our love expired. Or maybe, all of this combined.

Either way, we started to argue a lot. One day, she could not take it anymore and ran away. I think she only wanted to escape for a little while, to cool down in a different environment. She probably meant to come back eventually. But unfortunately, they found her sooner than she could return.

Even if we were not on our best terms at the time, it broke my heart when I got a word from Asgore that he had killed a human and taken their soul. And I had to pretend it did not matter all that much to me. Especially when I was asked to study the human soul and attempt to create a substitute that we could use to trick the barrier into breaking.

I asked Asgore for her body as well. I told him I wanted to study it in order to figure out how the soul was tied to it. In reality, I meant to try to resurrect Tahoma, reunite her body with her soul. I was blinded by guilt; I blamed myself for what happened, and I desperately wanted to bring her back. I worked day and night, extracting particles and substances from her soul and injecting them into her body, using my science and my magic, whichever I felt appropriate at the time. With no success.

After several days of confusion and emptiness, I still missed her voice. I wondered if she was still... alive inside her soul, and if so, whether or not I could speak to her and tell her I was sorry for everything. Therefore, it was not because of power or curiosity, but because of despair that I decided to absorb her soul.

What I did not know was that once a host absorbs an additional soul, it shares the control over the hosts body. Tahoma's soul overpowered mine, probably because I was too tired to defend my sovereignity.

I did not know if she wanted to kill me for what I had done to her, or herself out of desperation from all that happened. We hastened into The Core together. It was like a nightmare: I knew what my body was doing but it did not listen to my commands. Once we arrived on a bridge above the pit of lava, Tahoma threw us into the bottom.

With my instincts awakening, I was able to regain control in the last second and reached to all my powers to carry me to safety. But there were circumstances I could not predict. My body couldn't withstand the enormous amount of stress I felt: carrying two souls, all the emotions I had inside me... And as I panicked, being a fraction of a second away from my death, I withdrew more magic than I should have -so much that it took from my physical form. My conscience, torn apart, shattered across time and space.

I do not know how long it was before I realised that I could open my eyes again. Maybe the best explanation would be: no time. You see, the place where I woke up, the place where we are right now... Time or matter has no meaning here. It is an empty void with me as not only the sole inhaitant, but the only thing inside it. Can you imagine how terryfying that thought was at first? I was an entire universe to myself, and nothing existed outside of my body.

Well, "body" might be an exaggerated term. This is barely more than a projection of my memory. My body should be dying, but as long as I reside in the void, there is no time in which the process could happen, and there is no place where my dust can dissolve to. Nothingness is the price I pay for life.

But I am not trapped here with nowhere else to go. I am still bonded to the world from which I came, and I can travel there ocassionally. Not for a long amount of time until my body begins to dissolve. I cannot physically interact with the world in any way. I can use my magic, but considering it is the only thing keeping me alive, it would be unwise.

But I could not resist, I refused to lose the only connection I had remaining with my home world. I needed to know how the world went on without me. My only wish was that noone could ever see me. That goes for you as well, Sans, and your brother. I pity that I could not have been a father to you for more than a couple of months, but... You would not want a father such as myself. I considered it better if I was believed dead than having anyone know I was out there, since there was no certainty when and where I would appear again for a short period of time, if that would happen at all. Besides, I refused to answer for everything which happened because of me.

Over time, I made some sense of what had happened after my presumed death. Some people found Tahoma's soul in The Core and re-captured it; King Asgore had not let anyone to it, along with other souls he gathered along the time, since then. Only the royal scientist that took my place some time after I was gone could work with them.

I said my conscience was torn apart. I found out that was quite literal. Over time, three shapeless monsters appeared that nobody had ever seen before. Like me, they were not able to interact with physical matter; the only way they could was to possess an object which they could use as a substitute body. I may be wrong about this, but given the circumstances, I assume that they were the remnants of my soul, unaware of how they came to life.

As for me, I observed. I watched my two sons struggle as they grew up. I watched the new royal scientist discover my old blueprints and make some improvements to the machines I used when I tried to resurrect Tahoma. I saw five other humans fall down into the underground, and all of them being killed for their souls. I once saw the sixth human, even. A young child. But the next time I visited, the underground went empty. I assumed Asgore succeeded in obtaining all the souls necessary.

After that, I could not follow the monsters anymore. The human world does not contain the high concentrations of magic that I need to keep me intact. Therefore, I could still only come to the underground, but there was just as much meaning to it as staying in the void. Nothing ever changed there.

Except for one thing.

I discovered her in the king's palace, long after everyone had left. Asgore had seven coffins in the basement. How much it shocked me when I heard tapping from inside one of them. And a voice. **Her** voice...

With grave danger, I used my magic and let Tahoma out from the coffin. I had to escape back into the void and heal immediately, but I eventually came back. She was waiting for me. I explained everything: what happened before and after we perished, that I was sorry for everything...

Tahoma did not seem to care much. As I figured out later, her body was able to persist thanks to the injections I have given it so long ago, specifically the "determination" substance, as my successor named it. But the lack of soul cannot be replaced by anything. And without a soul, Tahoma could not feel emotions. Her life was reduced to a simple view: survive at all cost.

She was afraid to leave the underground, knowing someone would probably find her and destroy her. So instead, she began exploring. I sometimes acompanied her, feeling the chance to at least talk to someone again after all those years. The joy I first felt from being reunited with Tahoma soon faded away, for without a soul, she no longer was the person I used to love.

Eventually, we came into the old laboratory and found the machine that the scientist used to extract -and keep -the determination. We found out from the old royal scientist's notes what determination does to monsters: it dissolves the magic particles which construct a monster's body. The theory was that only humans could take relatively high concentrations of the substance; furthermore, that human souls were the only known natural producers of determination and human bodies cannot survive without it.

I was not sure if I believed it, but Tahoma did. Fearing that she, lacking a soul of her own, was going to die soon, she began to intake determination from the machine regularly. And the amount that she was taking in increased every time. Whether or not she needed it before is irrelevant now; it is my firm belief that her body developed an addiction, and the period over which it dissolves without a sufficient dosage is getting shorter and shorter.

Sadly, the determination machine is almost empty. I do not know what she will do next; perhaps she will have to overcome her fear, leave the mountain and attempt to... find a natural source of determination, or a monster soul that would keep her alive permanently.

But at least as long as the substance is available in the machine, Tahoma can always be found somewhere near. Which means that if I want to see her, I know I have to go to the old laboratory.

* * *

"And that, Sans, is where you found me today," Gaster finished.

His son kept looking at him a little longer before turning away with his arms crossed without a single word. He was thinking.

"I understand it is a lot to take in," he added. "I do not expect you to understand it all immediately."

"um..." Sans seemed to be short for words. "you're right, i don't know what to think. i mean..." He sighed. "wow. i'm sorry for what you had to go through, and at the same time, i feel kinda happy that i got to hear it. yesterday i wasn't even sure if i'd ever find you, and now you're here and you're telling me that my mother is out there as well. that rules."

"Well," Gaster frowned, "I would not recommend thinking about her as your mother anymore. Like I said, she does not have a soul. I lost my life in the broadest sense, but I have at least an imprint of my former soul. Tahoma, not so much."

"oh. so you don't think i could get through to her?"

"I am sorry, but no. Just like you cannot expect an empty bottle to quench your thirst. I had to learn the hard way myself."

"how so?"

The scientist looked away from his son. "There were... times when she felt like I was getting in her way, or like I was a threat. She never hesitated to try and attack me. She probably would not stand my presence at all if I was a living monster with a soul which she could absorb. That is the only thing that matters to her: survival. Through a monster's soul, or using the determination from the human souls. But that, as I have told you, is only a temporary solution."

When Sans didn't answer, Gaster looked back at him. He was looking into the void motionless, with a dreadful expression. He looked somewhat paler than before, if that was even possible.

"lynx," he said.

"Pardon me?"

"gast... i mean, dad." The skeleton turned towards him. "if tahoma is really as harmful as you make her sound, that means she could have attacked lynx while we were away."

"Improbable," said Gaster to reassure him, even though he began to feel a little worried as well. "You said you have been coming down there for a week? Tahoma has most likely noticed your presence but was afraid of the unexpected intruders, excuse the word. Otherwise, you would have seen her already."

"i'm sorry, but i can't rely on that. if tahoma sees lynx, a defenseless human, what do you think she'll do? she might think she could use her soul to get more determination..." His eye was glowing lightly. "she can't, can she?"

The scientist sighed. "My successor had written very detailed reports of the procedure, I can tell you that much. If she is able to do it... I do not know."

"i gotta go." Sans looked around frantically. "how do i go?"

"Are you sure?"

"what do you think?" he retorted. "sorry. i just can't afford to trust her. i can't... i can't afford to lose lynx."

Gaster was looking at his son with mixed feelings. He was somewhat proud of him, that he was so keen to protect his loved ones without question. But the loved ones he chose... The scientist was only hoping that Sans will not make the same mistakes as himself, or that the world is more open to peace between humans and the monster kind.

He breathed out again. "Just call out to your powers. You should be able to feel the link between the home world."

"thanks. and, dad?" Sans looked him in the eyes one more time with a sad face. "i hope we'll meet again soon."

With those words still echoing softly through the void, the skeleton's body seemingly stretched into the distance like a rubber string, until it was so far away and the string so tight that Gaster couldn't see it anymore. He knew Sans was gone by then.

He sat down and thought. About everything. His life, Sans and Lynx, Tahoma. Souls, determination, magic, humans and monsters.

After a long while, he stood up again with a sad certainty.

"Yes, Sans," he spoke up to the emptiness. "We will..."


	13. Chapter 13 - Tears

_And I thought that the difficult updates were over.  
_

* * *

 **Chapter XIII: Tears**  
 _(Sans's perspective)_

Sans was never much of a believer. This time, however, he was actually praying to whatever gods there were or might have been that everything was okay.

The void spat him out exactly where he left before, in the middle of the room with the big machine. The skeleton needed a few seconds to regain balance, more mentally than physically. When he looked around, he saw that he was completely alone.

Before he could allow himself to rejoice that he finally found his father and learned the truth about him, Sans had to make sure that Lynx was safe. It was without question that they shouldn't be coming back to the laboratory as long as his mother, or whatever was left of her, resided in there.

He looked at his phone. Of course: no reception. That meant he either had to search the old lab, or come back to the surface and try to call her then.

"lynx?" he shouted into the corridor, even though he knew he could attract Tahoma's unwanted attention. He wasn't afraid of her; he felt strong enough to protect himself if necessary. Lynx, on the other hand, probably wasn't.

Nobody replied to his call. Sans walked forward swiftly until he reached the next hall.

"lynx?" he tried again. His voice echoed lightly in the distance.

Then, he heard a quiet chuckle from one of the corridors. The skeleton turned his head in that direction, and the increasing warmth coming from his eye sockets notified him that his eye was glowing.

Sans hastened into the next chamber. It was a long, narrow room with several flower pots filled with dead flowers.

"lynx, if you're just playing hide and seek right now, it's really not cool," he spoke into the darkness. He thought he saw a silhouette at the opposite end of the room, and when he looked closely, he did see a person lying motionless on the floor.

"lynx?" Sans took a step forward.

Someone giggled again, and this time, they were right behind him. The skeleton slowly turned around.

"Don't worry," she said mischievously. "She's just taking a nap."

In front of him stood a human being; a woman who couldn't have been more than a few years older than Lynx. She had thin brown hair, barely long enough to reach her neck. Her clothes were barely hanging on her; she must have been unnaturally skinny.

Tahoma laughed when she saw the look Sans gave her. "Surprised to see me here?"

"not really. gaster already told me all i need to know about you." The skeleton somehow managed to stay calm while looking at his late mother. "what did you do to her?"

Tahoma gave him an innocent look; she resembled a little girl who never knows that she did something bad. "I tried to tell her that I need her help to stay alive. Lynx -that's what you called her, right? A cute name." She smiled widely. "Lynx didn't want to come with me, so... I had to make her."

Then, she blinked curiously. "And who are you?"

"the name's sans."

"Oh," Tahoma said, and then her eyes widened. "Oh! I should have known as soon as I saw you." She reached out and grabbed his wrist with her left hand. Sans didn't want to let her, but against all the warnings that his dad gave him, he somehow hoped that he could bring out Tahoma's good side.

"My son..." she said and looked him in the eye. "So, Gastie told you everything, you said?"

"pretty much. including the fact that you're not who you were before. you're soulless." Sans winked. "no offense."

"That's rude... But accurate," his mother laughed. "So you know I can't stay alive on my own. Not without determination." Her grip on his wrist tightened. "And therefore, you understand that I need your friend to survive."

"that's what i was afraid you might say." Sans carefully tried to pull back, but Tahoma didn't let go. "i can't let you use her to farm determination. her life has more value to me than yours."

"How dare you?" she cuddenly cried and pushed him back; he almost fell on the floor. "I am your mother, you wouldn't have been here without me!" Then, Tahoma instantly calmed down and smiled again. "Wait, I know the way you look at me. Gastie had the same look when he thought I was in danger."

She laughed out loud; in that laugh, Sans heard an unspoken threat, and he realised that he had to grab Lynx and get the hell out before someone gets hurt. He turned around and ran towards her.

But Tahoma was one step ahead of him; before he knew it, she was kneeling a few steps in front of him, holding a knife at the girl's neck. The skeleton stopped.

"You're so much like your father, Sans," she said, and all the warmth that was in her voice before was gone. "He always did everything he could to protect me from any harm. But I didn't want a guardian angel. Gastie was everywhere, I was never allowed to leave his sight... And in the end, what was it all good for?" She pointed the knife at him. "You're only going to make the same mistake if you love someone you shouldn't."

Sans chuckled and closed his eyes. Apparently, there was no other way.

"the world's different now," he said slowly. "monsters and humans live together in peace. what we do not allow, however..."

He looked at his mother who waited patiently for his next move.

"...is to take threats from someone who should be burning in hell."

His last word still resonated through the room when he raised his hand, summoning a barrage of bones that impaled his completely surprised oponent and threw her against the wall.

Sans breathed out.

"the world's different now," he said slowly. "monsters and humans live together in peace. what we do not allow, however..."

He looked at his mother who waited patiently for his next move.

"...is to take threats from someone who should be burning in hell."

 _wait, have I done this before?_ he thought. _this is, like, a massive deja vu._

He summoned a barrage of bones aimed for Tahoma. She rolled over to the side, and the projectiles missed her.

Without missing a beat, Sans gestured towards the ceiling, and his oponent flew up. While holding her there, more sharp bones emerged from above and ended her life.

Sans breathed out.

"the world's different now," he said slowly. "monsters and humans live together in peace. what we do not allow, however..."

He looked at his mother who waited patiently for his next move. There was definitely something odd; had he not just killed her two times?

Without finishing the sentence, he fired the bones at her. Tahoma rolled over barely in time; one of the projectiles scratched her shoulder.

Sans sent her up to the ceiling again, and watched as his mother pushed herself down again to evade the bones that weren't even there yet.

"What's the matter, Sans?" she shouted mockingly. "I can tell you really _missed_ me."

Tahoma jumped forward and swung her knife at him. The skeleton dodged and tripped her legs with his own foot; she flattened on the floor.

" _bone_ voyage," he said and summoned a blaster. She only had the time to turn around before the weapon dissolved her into some very burnt particles.

Sans breathed out.

"the world's different now," he said slowly. His mother was still waiting for his next move, like nothing happened at all. "monsters and humans... you know what, screw it."

While he attacked her, he tried to make some sense of what was happening. Last time he experienced this had to be eight years ago, when Frisk was in the underground. As far as he knew, Sans was the only monster who felt these sudden repeats of timelines. Sometimes they went as far as few days, and he could barely remember what had happened before. Sometimes they were only a matter of several seconds; those ocassions were easier to notice.

He recalled the scene back in the hall of judgement. He felt back then it has been repeated a few times, and then Frisk told him his triple-secret codeword which noone else ever knew. He came up with it as a joke a while back, to use in case he had a suspition that someone he met was able to travel through time. Much to his surprise, his friend actually could. Later on, he realised that the unnaturally high amounts of determination combined with the magical environment of the underground apparently gave Frisk some sort of immortality, and she was able to come back in time to certain points that had a significant meaning to her.

The knowledge he didn't have then made him now realise the horrible truth: Tahoma who was literally filled with determination at this point couldn't die -not permanently, anyway. Sans didn't know if resetting the timeline was actually bringing the levels of determination in her body down, but if so, his best chance was to keep defeating her over and over again until she won't be able to come back anymore. And if not... There was literally nothing he could do, except try to get Lynx and escape as far and as fast as he could.

Sans sent a blaster at Tahoma; she dodged and attacked him with her knife again. He blocked it with a single bone he quickly made out of thin air.

"unlucky for you," he told her and sent her flying into the distance, "i've met someone like you before. she couldn't stop living until she got what she wanted."

The woman flew out into the corridor; he heard her groan, and she ran back with her weapon held high.

"that means that i know i can't defeat you." He placed a wall of bones in front of Tahoma, and heard her crash into it. Sans turned around and ran towards Lynx. "but i can at least stop you from what you intend to do."

"Is that so?" she shouted back at him.

When the skeleton clutched his unconscious friend in his arms and looked up, he saw Tahoma break in through the bone wall. Before he could do anything, she took her knife -and ran it through her chest. She gasped and fell to the ground, but she did so with a cruel smile.

Sans breathed out.

"the world's dif... oh," he said as he saw his mother kneeling behind Lynx once again.

"You're right about one thing, Sans. You **can't** defeat me." She laughed. "I'm going to get what I want, one way or another."

She unexpectedly threw her weapon at him; he dodged, but not fast enough.

He felt a sharp pain in his right thigh bone and collapsed to the floor. When he looked up, he saw the woman's triumphant eyes staring him down.

"why?" he asked quietly; talking was suddenly very exhausting. "why did you have to become this?"

"It's nothing personal," said Tahoma and grabbed him by his shoulders. "But if you're gonna make me choose between kill or be killed..."

The last thing he knew before everything went dark was that his mother threw him through the air with way more force than he would have expected. Then, his skull hit one of the mirrors on the wall, and Sans was knocked unconscious.

It should have been the end. But something changed.

He didn't know how long it was before he woke up again. At first, he didn't have even enough strength to open his eyes, but he could hear voices. They started off very quiet and inarticulate until they grew out to full volume.

"Are you sure he'll be fine?"

"Yes. If his wounds were fatal, he would not be here anymore."

Then, a few seconds of silence. Sans was slowly starting to remember how to use his body.

"What about you? I thought you can't be here."

"That is right. But I believe that breaking the rules is sometimes the only option."

"We know a few things about that. But... what's gonna happen to you?"

"I do not care, as long as it means that he is safe. And you, too."

The skeleton shivered and opened his eyes. He was looking at the ceiling.

"There must be another way!" Lynx said urgently. "You don't have to do this!"

Gaster breathed out. "I do. It is the least I can do for my son."

There was a second of silence, followed by a gasp. Apparently, Lynx noticed that he was waking up. "Sans!" she shouted, and next thing he knew, her worried face appeared in his sight. "How are you feeling?"

He thought for a moment.

"i feel a little bit short on crustaceans."

She blinked. "What?"

"'cause someone beat the _crab_ outta me." He laughed shortly. "get it?"

Lynx only shook her head. In the distance, Gaster coughed.

"what the hell happened?" Sans asked, sat up and looked towards dad. He was presented with a peculiar sight: Gaster who looked 100-years-older kind of exhausted was standing there with his hands behind his back. Behind him, Tahoma was lying on the ground and wasn't moving.

"Let me explain," his dad replied while Lynx helped get the skeleton back on his feet. "After our discussion, I wanted to come back and see if everything is in order. And I arrived just in time, it seems."

His voice was weak and slow; Sans didn't like it.

"I found both of you unconscious, and she-" Gaster gestured disgustedly towards Tahoma, "was about to destroy you. And..." he was about to continue, but he shivered and moaned in pain, unable to speak for a few moments.

"And he defeated her before I woke up," Lynx finished for him.

"that's really cool and all," said Sans; "but can someone please tell me why you look like you just got up from your death bed?"

Nobody said a word for a couple of seconds. This, he liked even less.

"Well..." Gaster spoke up, "it seems that death is actually my next destination."

"what?" he said in shock. "how? why?"

"I take it that you have learned about the power of Tahoma's determination?" his dad asked, and he nodded nervously. "Right now, she is not able to move. I am not letting her have her turn, so to speak. If we try to... dispose of her, or if she gets the chance to do so herself, she **will** come back, and all of this would have been for nothing. The only way to get out of this cycle is to physically drain all the determination from her."

He had to make a pause again, but even though his whole body was obviously aching, he smiled reassuringly. "I hope I do not have to explain to you that me being here for such an extended time, along with using my magic on Tahoma... is no good news for me. Truth be told, I could have finished this already, but I wanted to wait until you wake up. I wanted to get the chance to say goodbye."

"nonsense!" Sans cried out. "just go back to the void and heal! i can take over from here, if that's all it takes!"

To prove himself, he raised his hand in Tahoma's direction and called out to his powers. But he only screamed in pain and collapsed back on the ground. Lynx yelped.

"You cannot," his dad commented the situation. "You were badly injured, and you are in no condition to use your magic."

The skeleton looked at his right leg; the cut was almost closed, but the attempt to use his powers cost him a few more particles of dust. He reached to the back of his head and touched it; his skull must have been open wide not long ago.

Sans looked at Gaster, and he was horrified to realise what had to happen.

"there must be another way!" he unwillingly copied his friend's words. "you have to live!"

"Live?" His dad laughed. "Sans, you saw what 'life' means for me, and what it has meant for a long time. Today, you have finally given a meaning to all those years I spent trapped between the worlds. If my long exile meant that one day, I had the chance to save my son's life," he smiled again, "then I would say it was worth it."

"but... i can't let you go now that i've finally found you!" The skeleton was thinking hectically. "what if we just... i dunno, tie her up and leave? without magic?"

"With what? Besides, you have seen how strong she is. Ropes would not stop her."

"there must-!"

"Sans."

It was Lynx' quiet voice that made him stop and turn to her. She had tears running down her face, but in her eyes were telling him that there was nothing they could do about it.

"It is natural that you do not wish to accept this, but you have to try," Gaster said; he screamed and white dust became to fall from his hands. "I am sorry that I must leave you again, but... I will be at a better place, I swear."

Sans thought hard if there was anything else he wanted to tell dad; he must have had mere moments left. All the things he was going to tell him, about his life, about Papyrus, Asgore, even Frisk who set the monsters free -dad would love to hear that story. But all of it seemed irrelevant next to what was happening at that very moment.

"i won't forget you, dad," was all he could say.

Gaster smiled once again. "Then I suppose I will never truly be gone."

He turned towards Tahoma's motionless body; immediately, both of them began to glow white slightly.

"Goodbye, son. Both of you," he added. "And thank you."

The monster and the human disappeared in a pool of light. Sans and Lynx had to look away.

It wasn't longer than a few seconds, but to the skeleton it might have as well been a whole year.

The corridor was just as dark and quiet as before; the only sound was Lynx' quiet sobbing. Sans took a brief peek and quickly turned his head back away. He had a feeling he saw a sillhouette of a human corpse covered in an undisclosed white liquid. He didn't want to be certain if it was really there.

Instead, he placed his hand on his friend's back and softly pushed her the other way, to the exit, away from all that happened and that was still remaining in that room.

It wasn't until they undertook the long and silent walk up to the top of the mountain and stepped out of the cave, into the starry night, that Sans too broke into tears.


	14. Chapter 14 - The End

_Yup..._

* * *

 **Chapter XIV: The End**  
 _(Lynx's perspective)_

It was a beautiful day outside.

Out of all days, it was this one that she had to sit on a plane instead of running through the woods and breathing it all in. But Lynx wasn't in the mood anyway.

Only a couple of days have passed since her last visit in the underground; since Sans and his father saved her from a fate which would have been worse than death. The skeleton avoided any contact with her since. Lynx took it that he was grieving Gaster's death and needed time to deal with it on his own.

On one hand, she was sort of glad that she was leaving it all behind. She at least had a goal to follow; for her, the trips to the mountain would have ended anyway with her departure for school. For the skeleton, it must have been way harder: he spent months and months trying to find his lost father, which he eventually did -only for him to be taken away from Sans again, and this time, it was definite. He must have felt very empty; suddenly, he had nothing to do, plus the whole mission seemed like it wasn't good for anything, plus he had noone to talk about it with. Except for herself, of course, but he shut down all his communication channels, not allowing Lynx to reach him.

She understood, but it disappointed her anyway. After everything they went through together, Sans grew closer to her than ever before, even so that every once in a while, Lynx fantasised about staying home and by his side. Of course, that was just a beautiful nonsense.

Leaving the country without the opportunity to say goodbye to him sucked. Lynx hoped he would be at the airport; he wasn't. It was kind of understandable since he probably didn't want her mum to meet him, but it made her sad nevertheless.

And now, she was sitting next to a window waiting for all passengers to board. She was among the first few to be seated, so it was no wonder that it took awfuly long time. Giving her even more time to think about everything in the process.

Lynx breathed out; she was looking outside with her head resting on her hand. The sun was shining like there was no tomorrow, but she didn't see it; she was lost in her thoughts. Apart from being let down by Sans, she was obviously thinking about her new school. Living far away from home, meeting new people, overall just beginning a new chapter of her life. What's it going to be like?

Because she wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings, she almost missed a subtle flash of light reflecting in the window. Lynx thought it was probably just her imagination and kept on looking outside.

"just in case you were wondering," Sans said behind her shoulder, "no, you're not hallucinating."

She smiled. "How did you know what I was thinking?"

"i've known you for a while now."

Lynx turned her head. The skeleton was sitting next to her with his hands in his pockets. He was wearing a bizzare mixture of his regular outfit and a suit; he had his black shorts on and on his feet were fluffy pink slippers, bud he also wore a white shirt with mismatched buttons and an untied bowtie. An elderly couple in the background was trying hard not to look at him too blatantly.

"Wow," she said. "So I guess you're preparing for the wedding, then?"

"ya bet. paps is freaking out, he actually threatened to feed me to the dogs if i don't start getting ready." Sans rolled his hypothetical eyes. "i didn't even tell him i'm leaving. i don't wanna imagine what's waiting for me at home."

Lynx giggled. "So what are you doing here? And how'd you get on?"

"oh, don't worry, i won't be here that long. Some gentleman is about to take this seat in about... five minutes, that's my guess."

"How so?"

He smirked. "'cause i didn't hide his ticket **that** well. i took it from his jacket and hid it in his back pocket. he'll look there eventually."

"You're terrible," she laughed. "And you're lucky that you're able to get here unnoticed."

"yup."

Suddenly, they both went silent. Lynx didn't know what to say. For all she knew, this could be the last time they saw each other, at least for another year.

"i'm sorry i didn't return your calls," Sans said eventually. "i needed time to think."

"About your... About what happened down there?"

"naturally." He closed his eyes. "i still don't want to talk about it. but please, don't worry about me, i'll be fine. besides, you gotta buttload of your own problems to focus on now."

"Okay." Lynx reached out and placed her hand on his. "But I'm still sorry for everything."

"everything?" the skeleton retorted and looked at her. "don't be. we had so many fun times together. i'd rather think about them when i remember you."

"You know," she said what was on her mind a lot lately; "we can remember those times together, can't we? Anytime we want. If we stay in touch."

"i don't know." Sans looked down and banged his feet together. "our whole thing, going to the underground together... that story's over now. you're at uni now, and i... have to find something else to do. on my own. in my own city." He sighed. "i would love to stay in touch with you, but... is it gonna be the same as before? and if not, can we move past everything that we've been through up to now?"

"You know **I** can," Lynx replied, a little surprised that she actually said it. "Because I want to. You're... I need you in my life, Sans. This story might be over, but we could write the next one together, too."

Before she knew it, the two of them were hugging each other tight. She closed her eyes and remembered everything they did together. It was all leading to this moment; and just when she was gaining some control over the chaos in her mind, realising just how much she was going to miss the dumb skeleton, he was being taken away from her.

"are you saying what it sounds like you're saying?" Sans asked somewhere over her shoulder.

"I don't know," she answered with nervous laughter. "I'm sorry, I'm not good at this."

They slowly pulled back, and looked into each other's eyes.

"i can't do this right now, lynx," Sans spoke up slowly, and his face was full of regret. "on one hand, i'd love to, but... everything is weird right now. what happened in the mountain is all that keeps me busy now, and... a long distance relationship is not a responsibility i'd be good at maintaining. perhaps any kind of relationship, at this point."

He held her hand. "i hope it makes some sense to you," he added.

It did, but she was far from being ok with it. Unable to find the right words, Lynx pulled him in for a sad embrace again.

"Excuse me," a man's voice interrupted them. "You're on my seat."

Sans turned his head. If the intruder was surprised by his appearance, he was able to tactfully hide it.

"sorry," the skeleton said. "could you give us like another minute, perhaps?"

"Sure, no problem," the man replied and turned around. "But make it quick, we're about to take off soon. You should be at your seat, too."

"looks like our time's finally over," said Sans as the stranger walked away, probably understanding that the two of them need some privacy. "so... i'll leave now."

Lynx hesitantly tilted towards him and gave him a peck on the cheek. "I know you have to take your time, but please call me when you're ready."

"alright." Sans hugged her briefly one last time and stood up.

"have fun at school," he said with a smile.

"Have fun at the wedding," she said back, and then she remembered something. "Looks like Undyne's _of-fish-ially_ getting hitched, huh?"

"hey, i knew you'd remember that one," Sans chuckled. "and you're right. alphys is a lucky girl, undyne's quite a _catch_."

Lynx giggled too.

"See you, bone head."

"see ya, young lady."

Within a blink of an eye, Sans was gone. About ten seconds later, the man came back, probably thinking that the skeleton has left to find his own seat.

"Don't worry," he said understandingly. "Once we take off, your friend can come back. I won't disturb."

"Oh no, he's... He won't be coming back," Lynx replied and looked through the window again. She didn't want to cry in front of a stranger. Maybe when they're in the air, she could go to the bathroom and do it there.

* * *

The wedding was a big success. Alphys somehow managed to get through the whole thing without fainting, and Undyne showed her more feminine side for a change. Prior to the ceremony, she was nervous and threatened to hurt most people at the wedding at least once; but after she and her bride have said their yeses, she turned into a cute and happy wife, and she and Alphys spent the rest of the afternoon being an annoying schoolgirl couple.

Papyrus who was Undyne's best man (or "bone of honour" as his brother liked to call him) bawled his eyes out. Frisk did a lot better, although when Sans glanced over at her after the ceremony, her makeup was kind of blurry, and her shoulders shook uncontrollably when Asriel came by and gave her a hug.

The thing that spoiled the event to him was that everyone seemed to care what was wrong. Sans repeatedly told everybody that everything was fine and put on a fake smile each time. Some people stopped caring after his response, but Papyrus, for instance, he couldn't get rid of. Eventually, the short skeleton started to feel to annoyed; he made up some kind of excuse and left, even though the night has barely begun.

Sans walked slowly with his hands in his pockets, looking at the ground under his feet. He deliberately chose to walk through less crowded streets, so he didn't meet many people.

Not even a week ago, he was sure that he would die by the hand of his own mother. Then, his dad gave his life so that Sans could live. And finally, today Lynx who was his only friend in all this mess left as well. It all still seemed way too surreal to fully comprehend.

He wasn't completely lying to Lynx: he needed some time off to think about everything. But in reality, as hard as it was to deal with his father's passing, it wasn't all that difficult to accept; if anything, Sans felt disappointment over the fact that his whole search and all the effort put into finding Gaster seemed completely pointless at the end. Furthermore, had he not accidentally put Lynx in danger, his dad might have still been alive. The voice of reason was trying to convince him that he couldn't have known about Tahoma, but it wasn't that easy. The "what if" of the whole situation was strong and painful.

The good thing was that Sans at least got to know the truth about everything before everything went down. When he thought about it, he had to admit that it was better this way than never knowing anything.

And Gaster never blamed him for anything. In fact, he seemed happy to be able to save his son's life; plus, both him and Tahoma have hopefully found their peace at last. It was almost like everything has been resolved to universal satisfaction, but it had a bitter aftertaste nevertheless.

Was this his problem? he was asking himself. In the end, he was mostly upset that life was unfair to him when the ending was more or less good. Dad was gone forever now, but if Sans managed to live without him before, he should be able to keep doing so afterwards. And now he knew what kind of person Gaster was, and he will be able to remember him, all things considered, as a good person and a good father.

Sans arrived home. He unlocked the door, walked in, took off his shoes, untied his bowtie. He then went to his room where he sat on his bed motionless.

Everything would be easier if he could lean on Lynx. But he really didn't want to trouble her with his problems mere days before she left. And after she was gone...

He's always been too lazy to maintain basically any kind of relationship with anyone. Maybe this time, too, he was afraid that he would only let her down eventually, something he would have loathed himself for. He just wasn't ready for the responsibility.

Very much unlike his dad. Gaster spent years protecting the person he loved, even though he knew he was risking her life and his own reputation, to say the least. And even if things worked out the way they did between him and Tahoma, he sacrificed everything he could for her; in the end, it even cost him his own life.

Sans felt a stab in the chest. Dad was really gone, it barely ever left his mind since that day. There were so many questions left to answer, so many stories to tell... It was strange to think that for most people, he never even existed, and those who knew about him never got to know what kind of person he was. And they never will, either; the skeleton was willing to take his secrets to the grave. It was better for monsters to remember him as a brilliant scientific mind than a traitor of the king's trust or a wraith who paid for his mistakes with a horrible fate. Him and Lynx were the only ones who knew better.

Suddenly, his thoughts stopped for a split second and took a step back. He will never have another chance to speak with his father, that was true. But... Lynx was alive and well. If Sans would ignore his feelings and never talk to her again, then she would be just as dead to him as his dad. Only now, he could still make a difference.

How many friends has he lost by that time? He didn't know. But he did not want Lynx out of his life as well, he knew that. It was surprisingly simple, Sans thought; it would only take one phone call to make it right. She said it herself: _"You can't just sit around and let your problems solve themselves. You might... miss your chance."_

And the longer he waited, the more distant they would grow, until there would be nothing but bittersweet memories left.

Sans took his phone and looked at the clock on the screen. Nine thirteen. Lynx shouldn't be sleeping yet, and he was hoping she wasn't otherwise occupied.

He quickly dialed her number before he could change his mind. As he waited for her to pick up the phone and tried to sum up what he was going to say, a thousand thoughts crossed his brain; and one of them was louder and clearer than all the others.

Sans promised himself that this was not the end.

* * *

 **THE END.**

* * *

 _Afterword:_

 _First of all, before I forget, I would like to thank you for reading this far. I must be straight with you: There were a couple of times when I felt like I didn't want to finish this story, even though now I'm glad that I did. And what kept me going was knowing that somewhere in the world, there is someone waiting for the next chapter. So again, thank you for motivating me, directly or indirectly to keep on doing this._

 _What happens next? Well, I still have that short story about Jerry to complete. I'll try to do it within the next month. If you're interested, there's a fanfic thread on my profile called Stories From Undertale; I'll post it there eventually.  
_

 _After I'm done with that, I think it's time to leave Undertale for good. Who knows, maybe I'll come back to it, but right now it feels like it's not as interesting as it used to be a year ago. And His Story was, honestly, a bit rushed; I don't want to write about Undertale if that would mean sacrificing the actual value of the story._

 _But I would love to keep on writing. This might come as a surprise to you, but I'm actually really into vocaloids now; by which I of course mean the Crypton vocaloids, with Hatsune Miku leading the list. If you don't know who or what that is... too bad for you. :D But seriously, I have a few ideas sitting on my mind, I think I might start writing about them._

 _But whatever I happen to do next, it is unlikely that I'll start writing another long story sooner than, like, August. If you want to keep in touch with my latest works, don't forget to put me on your Alerts list! I'll be happy to see that my work makes **you** happy. :)_

 _Once again, thank you! You've been a great audience._

GJonson


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